


American Siren

by AraSigyrn



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), American Idol RPF, Kris Allen (Musician)
Genre: M/M, Mer-fic AU, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 00:25:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 42,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraSigyrn/pseuds/AraSigyrn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"<em>American Siren, America's #1 entertainment show for the last seven seasons, returns for its explosive eighth season. With returning judges Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul, American Siren will see the finest stars on land and sea compete for their place in music history!</em>"</p>
<p>Kris might be the first legitimate merman to compete on American Siren in its eight year history but he's determined not to be a fish out of water.  Singing and music are all Kris has ever wanted out of life but when he meets Adam Lambert, Kris might just find something he wants even more.  With everything on the line, can Kris make history?</p>
            </blockquote>





	American Siren

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to deannawol for tireless beta, the lovely ladies of the List for butt-kicking and cheerleading and generally being awesome!
> 
> Thanks to Chosenfire for the kickass art and her endless paitence.

Kris makes it to the auditions in Arkansas after a lot of last minute panic and hasty preparations. _American Siren_ is one of the biggest shows that targets the off-shore audiences as much as the walking folk but this is the first time they've announced the auditions when Kris' pod is in American waters.

It's a no-brainer, really. He's wanted to audition since the first season but it isn't until the week before, when he comes back from the Cape Verne Plain and his whole pod fills the water with happy song and warmth that Kris actually thinks he can do it. They're showing the ads on all the channels, even the ones that get broadcast in the deeps. There's a lot of smiling people and a whole list of places to go audition and Kris decides right then that he's going. That's the easy part.

First, Kris has to make it out of the water. Most of Kris' people don't leave the deep, much less the sea. A lot of the older folks are worried that he'll be in danger even though Kris' parents have taken him and Daniel in-land for vacation every year since he was a tiny guppy. Even Kris' momma is worried that he hasn't planned for this.

Kris argues his case in a song that takes him four days to complete and two hours to sing. There's a lot of dissonance at first but by the time he finishes, the whole pod is thrumming in harmony. Kris has to drift, gills flapping for nearly a minute to work the ache out of his throat and lower larynx before Katy and Cale tangle him up in enthusiastic hugs and Bravo sings a final triumphant flourish.

"It is agreed," his dad calls. "Kris will go and we will support him."

The whole pod sings agreement and Kris feels like he's bumped up against a jellyfish with all the jitters and energy crackling under his skin. That's the first problem solved but it still takes some fancy paperwork to get the landward side of things sorted out.

The US government doesn't really have any precedent for this but Kris has walking kin in Conway who sign forms to say he's a good guy and they'll vouch for him. There's a whole lot of red tape and a lot of people who don't want to make a decision and pass it on to their boss. Kris gets used to being told that he's the first case of an _icythus_ coming out of the water they've ever had to deal with.

The funny thing is that it shouldn't be a problem. The North-West Atlantic Territory is technically American so Kris technically qualifies as 'American'. The fact that most of his people never leave the sea - the last _icthyus_ in the public eye had been Rico 'Shark' Robinson during World War II and he hunted submarines - that's something that makes the government suits nervous and the producers drool.

_American Siren_ is going into its eighth season and despite the best efforts of everyone involved, the only winner who wasn't 100% human was Kelly Clarkson back in the first season. She's supposed to be 1/64th 'siren' but if she's ever publicized which of the water folk she takes after, Kris hasn't heard it. He does know that she's not any part _icthyus_ at least.

It's not really surprising; walking folk are really bad at keeping track of Kris' people. An _icthyus_ pod lives in the deepest ocean and might not see more than two or three walking folk for a generation, though with the steady roll-out of television broadcasts, that might change. There are an awful lot of different types of shallows - the folks who live in less than a hundred foot of water - like undines and octoids. There have been some of them - nymphs and lake folk mostly - who have taken part but none of them made it beyond the top ten.

Kris' mom talks to some of the people that the pod works with out of New Orleans and tells Kris that he's going to need to find someone to handle the legal issues. Kris promises to do just that and looks up the mer-rights groups that have lots of offices along the shores. The biggest and best recommended one is 'Sea to See', a non-profit advocacy group that has worked with Kris' mom's aunt's pod before so at least they know what they need.

He calls them and things just start happening without Kris' input actually being needed.

"Mr. Allen," Suzie, who works for 'Sea to See' and has been handling the shore-side business for him, comes down to Louisiana and all the way out in the swamps where Kris is staying. The water is thick and tastes of smoke and oil and human. Cale and Charles have come with him but most of the pod is staying in the deeper, fresher water. Kris leans his elbows on the deck of her boat, enjoying the sun and the fresh breeze blowing in from the Gulf. "Arkansas gets pretty hot, pretty dry, if you know what I'm saying. Will that be a problem?"

"Nah," Kris shakes his head. "I used to head up for summer vacation. I know how to cope."

"Okay," Suzie settles down cross-legged with her back against the one of the uprights. Kris likes that Suzie will do that; most of the government guys Kris has talked to have stayed standing the whole time but Suzie tries to get as close to Kris' level as she can. "The audition really wants you. It's going to be a big deal to them-"

"But?" Kris finishes for her. He's not great with walking folk's finer details but there were some fishermen he'd known as a whelp and his dad's family up in Conway come out to visit as often as they can so he knows enough about them to hear the hanging sentence. 

"But I don't think you want to be the 'mer-guy'," Suzie smiles at him, hitching a shoulder and Kris thinks that the make-up looks good on her. "I mean, I've heard you singing - out of the water, of course! - and I don't think you need a gimmick. I think you can win all by yourself."

Kris resettles his dorsal fins, relaxing a little. His pod isn't conservative or anything but singing a song under the water to a human he's only known a week? His momma'd have his tail! She's right though; Kris wants to win because he's good, not because he's the freak of the week. He hadn't even really thought about how being on the show would work.

"Well, first I gotta get through the auditions," he points out and Suzie snorts.

"Trust me, babes," she says. "You sing for them? They're gonna want you in Hollywood Week."

"Thanks," Kris only just remembers to keep his lips closed over his teeth as he grins up at her. "But okay, assuming I make it that far, you're right. I don't wanna be the freak show."

"I know, babes," Suzie reaches out to pat him on the arm. Her skin is dry and a little rough and she has plastic on her nails that feel oily and brittle against his skin. 

"I'm thinkin' you have a plan for that," Kris says.

"I have a suggestion," Suzie admits with a grin. "I think they'll go for it even. It's going to sound horrible, but I think you should like 'play human'? A little, like? I mean, they'll have to make accommodations but it could totally work until you're established. I think they'll go for it because it will add suspense and let them build up for the reveal. TV Gold!"

"Yeah," Kris nods, swishing his tail lazily through the water. "That makes sense."

"I mean, we'll only do this if you're okay with it," Suzie hurries to assure him. "I don't want you to be uncomfortable."

"I'm good," Kris assures her and they talk logistics for the rest of the day; Suzie going back to shore to send some faxes and make phone calls too important to trust to the dodgy signal out in the delta. Kris talks things over with his mom and dad and then he and the guys bait a few crocodiles while they wait for Suzi to finish her business. Then it's all done and the papers are signed and Kris has to swim into shallower water to assure a judge, an older man with bright red cheeks and grizzled sea foam beard and hair that Suzie has the authority to act as his advocate.

Kris spends that night in the middle of the pod, the muted song of his family threading through his dreams. At eleven o'clock the next morning, Kris swims into the swampy waters where the sea-proofed phones and computers are kept on their little stilt-houses. He calls his uncle Joshua to make the arrangements he needs.

Joshua isn't actually his biological uncle. Kris' dad went swimming up the river when he was younger and Joshua, just a kid with a cheap rod, caught him. What happened after that varies depending on who's telling the story but it wound up with them tied together with fishing line, floundering in the mud until they were both exhausted. They've been kin ever since and Joshua comes fishing with them once a year every year.

"We've got the bed made up for you," Joshua tells him cheerfully. "Gina called up the auditions and we're going to drop you over and then we can go for ice-cream either way."

"Sounds good," Kris smiles. "It'll be a couple of days before I can make it up. I'm not great with river swimming, you know?"

"Just like your dad," Joshua says fondly. Kris laughs at the old family joke; Joshua's getting older as walking folk mark the time but he sounds alert and alive as ever.

"At least I know to duck the fishing lines," Kris says, "see you soon." 

Kris goes back to his pod for his last night in the sea. His momma tells him to watch for the mud-eels. "They're not terribly smart, honey, but they're vicious and they'll eat just about anything that swims. Don't forget to watch out for plastic bags, don't get stuck."

"I won't, momma," Kris promises.

The pod are circling, weaving through the currents and filling the water with song. There aren't any words, it's not the sort of song that translates into any words Kris has ever learnt but means 'home' and 'family' and 'safe' and all the shades of well wishes and love. Kris threads himself into the song and reaches out to touch fins and tails. Then he dives, tail churning the water as he swims for the delta. His friends follow him, peeling off one by with a hug and a trilled song that wishes him well and tells him that they'll all be watching and cheering for him.

Kris starts up the Mississippi alone that night. It's easier to get past New Orleans by night when there aren't so many people watching. The folk in the river are mostly mud-eels, smaller and softer than Kris and they hang out by the waterside. Mississippi isn't anyone's spawning ground or private hunting territory but Kris' folk don't usually go upriver. 

River water is heavy and thick with runoff. It tastes of mud and Kris has to spend half the night adjusting to the unsalted water. The change from salt-water to fresh leaves him heavy and slow for hours and Kris hates it for the whole day it takes to adapt. His gills ache after just a few hours and he's half-choked by the mud and earth as he works his way up. There are some crocodiles, big dumb brutes who aren't fast enough to catch Kris and wouldn't be able to eat him even if they could.

Kris makes it up past the city in the grey hours of the morning, weaving his way through the trash that litters the bottom of the river. There are tins, rusted metal shapes that don't make any sense and the omnipresent plastic. Kris heard of a guy once who swallowed a plastic bag and got it wedged in his gills and he choked right there in the deep. It's one of his mom's favorite cautionary stories and Kris doesn't believe it actually happened but he still swims as close the bottom as he dares, darts away from every billow of plastic and is grateful once he's safely past.

He has to rest up just south of Baton Rouge, where the houses by the river are still relatively sparse and he can find a clump of weeds without a mud-eel mark to rest. It's quiet and lonely here, so far from the songs of the deep and Kris doesn't sleep well. He wakes in the afternoon to the splashing of kids in the water and the bass warble of a mud-eel. Kris doesn't move for a second, breathing in a cloud of fresh stirred slit and the flavor of the kids and the eel. The kids taste of clean sweat and spicy food. The mud-eel makes Kris think of wet, red flesh and grey, sticky mud.

Kris is hungry. He's got his own food; it isn't polite to hunt in territory that isn't his and Kris' pod didn't raise a brat. His momma packed him salmon and Kris tears into the meat easily as he thinks of the journey ahead.

"Hey, hey," the mud-eel's warble comes from much closer and Kris twists to face them, tail sweeping aside the weeds that were hiding him. "Oh."

The mud-eel deflates, the dark red leaking out of her fins so they curl against her sides like wisps of grey. She curls away from him. The taste of fear is cold and acrid in the water and Kris' dorsals rise instinctively as he floats closer.

"No offence, no offence," the mud-eel garbles the words, the slower, higher notes grating. "No harm, okay, no harm?"

Kris keeps his distance, tail moving to keep the current from pulling him any closer. He nods and the mud-eel's relief fills the water like an oil-slick. Kris doesn't know that much about their language but it's a sure bet she wouldn't understand his song. He tries anyway, weaving together the sounds for water, the pull of the tide/pull to the hunting fields and a polite query. He doesn't want to sing too loud, not with kids in the water and he has to repeat himself.

"Water's clear," the mud-eel nods, hands waving in time with her stubby fins. "Clear all the way to the mountains, way I hear it."

Kris nods his thanks and rolls smoothly back into the main current, diving under the weight of the water and starting to swim. He leaves her a fillet of salmon and doesn't spare her any more thought.

Once he gets past Baton Rouge, the water clears some and the sounds of walking folk and their noisy wheels fade. Kris settles into the steady rhythm of travelling, humming to himself to fill the empty waters. He's not trying for speed but he does want to make it as far as he can before he has to stop. The fresh-water doesn't make his lungs ache anymore and Kris winds up making his way up the Arkansas River under the blazing colors of a sunset.

Joshua and his boy Gary are waiting on their pier and Kris rises closer to the surface, dorsal fins breaking the water to leave V-trails. Gary spots him first, waving and calling to his dad. Kris slows and manages to stop just short of the pier. He waits for Joshua to beckon him up before he breaches. The setting sun is blinding after two days spent under the Mississippi's dark water and Kris grabs blindly for their waiting hands. Joshua catches one hand, Gary catches the other and they steady him. Kris sucks in a breath, gills flaring once last time before Kris twists into the change.

Feeling his tail come apart into legs doesn't hurt. It just feels weird - the sudden shift of muscle and sinew and the strain of his back curving against the weight of a tail that suddenly isn't there. Kris has done this a thousand times and it never stops feeling weird.

"Got your legs under you?" Joshua asks and he's grinning wide when Kris opens his eyes. "Easy there, son. Take a moment to find your land legs."

"That's never going to be funny," Gary complains but he steadies Kris as his new legs remember how to take his weight. "All right, Kris?"

"I-yes," Kris works his jaw. His voice shifts along with his tail, lifting half a pitch and he's cold. Walking folk don't have anything to insulate themselves and air is too thin to hold any heat.

"Kris?" Gina calls from the house. Joshua built his house right by the water, the better to receive his mer-folk guests after Kris' dad heard his mom's song. "Is that you, sweetie?"

"Yes, ma'am," Kris calls back.

"Are you decent?" Gina's coming to the door and Joshua lets go of Kris to grab up a pile of clothes. "The neighbors' girl, bless her heart, can't stay away from the water and her pa would have a fit."

"One sec," Kris promises and Gary helps him into the jeans and plaid shirt. They're loose, almost hanging off him and Joshua shakes his head. 

"We'll find a better fit in the morning, but that should do for the neighbors."

"Don't mind him," Gina comes through the door with the smell of fresh baking and sweeps Kris up into a hug. Hugs are the walking folk's greatest invention. "It's good to see you, son."

"And you," Kris says and she steadies him as he wobbles into the house. Gina's put on a big dinner and Kris eats so much that he can't move for like an hour afterwards. Then he gets to spend the rest of the evening inching his way around the living room as he relearns how to walk and balance himself on two legs while wearing pants. The constant friction keeps distracting him and he trips over his own feet.

He's been spending summer vacations on land since he was a guppy so it's not like he has to actually learn to walk again; he just needs to hang onto Gary until his muscle memory kicks back in. Gary laughs at him but he's been around Kris and his family since he was a baby so he knows how to steady Kris. He also knows exactly how much to tip Kris to make him flail desperately. Kris gets his land legs under him soon enough that they chase each other around the house twice before Gina shoos them both off to bed.

Kris sleeps well, exhaustion sinking him into the mattress and he doesn't remember his dreams. He wakes up early, eats breakfast and gets in all the practice he can before Joshua calls him to come get ready for the audition. Kris can't keep his legs from twitching on the drive over and Gary bumps their shoulders together.

"You're going to do just fine," Gina assures him from the passenger seat. "You have such a lovely voice."

Kris squirms a little in his seat; Gina's old enough to be his mom for deep's sake! But it's nice to hear all the same. Gary even remembers to bring Kris' guitar - the one that's tuned and built for the land - it sounds shrill and high-pitched compared to his guitar back home but that's good. It fits in here and Kris can wind his voice around it and keep the tune they need.

The audition is already packed; so many humans that the air seems syrupy with their voices and heartbeats and fast breathing. Kris says hey to some of Joshua's neighbors and mostly just fidgets while he waits for his turn. The clothes Gary got him feel too loose and Kris can feel the twitch in his dorsals as they try to rise. It leaves Kris with a dry mouth and he drinks three cups of water before his number finally gets called. The actual audition space has shitty acoustics but there are cameras whirring in the corner.

Kris introduces himself, remembering to turn his name into the human equivalent just in time.

"All right, Kris Allen," the judge who smiles at him puts Kris in mind of a great white, all teeth and hunger. "Wow us."

The song is one of his mom's favorites and Kris picks out the notes on his guitar, trying to will his dorsals to stay flat while he works his way through _On a Lone Star Dreaming_. It's weird to sing with so many strangers and Kris feels like he's swallowed a live eel that's thrashing around in his stomach. He gets through by focusing on the music, not on the bland expressions or buzzing cameras. It's a shock when the song ends and Kris is suddenly back in the dingy little room with too-hot lights and strangers.

The judges don't applaud or anything but Kris gets given his ticket for Hollywood week just inside the door. Ryan Seacrest turns out to have even more teeth than he does on television but he shakes Kris' hand warmly. Kris also gets hugged by Gina, Gary and Joshua and doesn't even notice the cameras catching the moment. It feels a little anti-climatic until Kris looks down at his printed page and realizes that he's done it.

"I knew it! Didn't I say you would do it!" Gina is crying and laughing and Kris hugs her tightly. He's hiccupping and laughing and it feels like his lungs are full of sea-foam. He calls his folks, warbling down the line and bounces around for the rest of the day, too giddy and happy to settle to anything.

He spends half the night splashing around in the river with Gary, his patterns glowing faintly in the dark water. Gary flounders around above him and Kris tows him around until the water gets too cold for human tolerance. Gary helps Kris haul himself out of the water and pats his tail with a towel. Kris has told him a hundred times that it doesn't really affect the change but Gary is trying to be helpful so Kris bites his tongue.

"So," Gary says as he hands Kris a clean pair of pants. "I want front-row seats when you're a superstar singer, okay?"

"Only if you bring Josephine," Kris teases and hears the jump in Gary's heartbeat. "Still in love with her?"

"Fuck you," Gary says, thumping his shoulder and they wrestle back and forth until Joshua comes out to holler at them.

The next morning, Gina sits Kris down with a notepad and a pen and tells him to work out what he's going to need to function in LA. 

"We have earplugs and moisture packs in the pantry," Gina tells him. "And there's still some wet-gel from your dad's last visit."

There's a grubby leaflet from 'See to Sea' describing the varying levels of preparation needed for an _icthyus_ to travel comfortably on land. It's never been something Kris has worried about before - he's never travelled much on land without his pod. Usually his mom handled stuff like that. Kris is honestly lost. He's never gone more than five miles from water in the past.

He calls Sylvie to ask for her help.

"Well," Sylvie says after Kris has unloaded the whole thing. "If you want to, I mean, they were talking about passing you on to a senior advocate now that you're definitely going to LA but-"

"Can't I keep you?" Kris says a little more desperately than he meant to be. Sylvie is smart, funny and has a knack for explaining thing so he doesn't feel like a beached guppy wailing for his mom to pull him back into the water.

"Well," Sylvie says like she's reading from a script. "A senior advocate may be able to handle things that I'm not trained for."

"I'm not a gupp-I'm not a _kid_ ," Kris says. "I don't need a babysitter, I need a tour guide and you've handled all the stuff so far and it's all turned out fine."

"Well," Sylvie hesitates. "I could drive you to LA and we can see how it goes? My girlfriend and I are in Little Rock and she loves _American Siren_. If that would make you feel better, you could totally ride with us, babes."

Kris says yes immediately and Sylvie arrives with Anna that night. Kris likes Anna, who is plump and wears dramatic make-up. She doesn't look anything like Sylvie who is tanned and slim but their laughter makes a melody that Kris feels humming along his spine. Kris would be happy to go that night but Gina insists on they all stay overnight, she wants to know the people Kris is going to be travelling with. Kris spends the evening wishing for a reef to hide under.

"He's family, you know?" Gina says for the fiftieth time, after Sylvie and Anna have been told how Kris was such a small guppy the first time Gina had seen him and how she'd thought Joshua was mad the first time he'd claimed Kris' dad as kin. Kris is just praying she won't break out the photo album. Sylvie has also had Gina and Joshua's advice over what Kris needs on the way and how to make sure he's all right. They've given her money; Joshua is one of the three walking folk who keep track of the pod's money ashore and the pod have authorized anything Kris needs.

"Don't mind us," Joshua echoes. "We just want to be sure. His momma's a little protective of her boys."

"Mama Orca," Gina says fondly. "Kim's a fine lady but you don't want to cross a momma."

"No, ma'am," Sylvie says seriously while Anna peers at Kris. Kris would take offence but she's looking at Joshua and Gary just the same. It's not the way walking folk normally look at him; Anna looks interested and takes the time to ask how Kris likes his coffee. She doesn't say much to Kris until they're pulling away in Sylvie's car which is half the size of Joshua's truck but accelerates like a shark, all smooth, sudden thrust. Kris is sitting in the back, the clamor of the car muffled by the earplugs tucked into his ear.

"Okay," Anna twists so she's sitting sideways, facing Sylvie. "So, Kris, I'm really sorry if this is rude or whatever but I have got _so many questions_ that I feel like I'm going to burst."

"You don't have to answer, Kris," Sylvie says hurriedly.

"But I gotta ask," Anna pleads. "I know a bit about you guys from Sylvie but my family's from Colorado. We've been landlocked for generations so a lot of these questions are going to be boring, probably."

"Ask away," Kris says with a smile. "I'll answer if I can."

"Okay," Anna says. "First question! Why couldn't you fly to Cali?"

"Cali?" 

"California," Sylvie explains.

"Oh, okay," Kris says. "It's nothing special about California. I wouldn't fly anywhere. Planes are too dry, too small. The air makes you cracked, my dad says. And the pressure is all wrong."

"The air pressure?" Anna says in surprise. "But you guys, like, dive to the bottom of the sea. How is a little air pressure going to fuck you up?"

"Pressure," Kris tries to think how to explain it. "Pressure tells me where I am. I can find my way from where I am to where I wanna be by the change in pressure. There's a whole different feel to the weight of the air in Louisiana than there is here in Arkansas."

"You can feel that?" Anna's voice is fluid and warm with surprise. "Wow. Okay, next question! How long can you stay out of the water? I know most of the sea folks don't like coming inland but you seem to be doing fine. Do you actually turn into a human?"

"Nah," Kris laughs. "We get close but we aren't any more human just 'cause we got legs. We can last a good while so long as we can get wet when we need to."

"I've told you this a hundred times," Sylvie hisses at Anna. "There's a hundred books on this at home."

"Books aren't as interesting as the real thing," Anna defends herself and there's mischief thrumming in her lower tones. "You've got really good English, Kris. Do all your people talk English that well?" 

"My pod know English because my dad has walking kin," Kris says. "Most of the other pods don't trouble to learn. They go through us if they got business with the walking folk. We get some television and the phones."

"Yeah," Anna lights up. "I did my final project on that - submarine sonar signals, yeah?"

Kris nods and Anna is off, happily talking about native encryption and the whole modification process for the electronic amps that Kris and his people use. Walking folk, Kris knows, have something like that; cell phones. Sylvie looks fond and exasperated but Kris likes the sound of Anna's enthusiasm. There's something there that makes him think of Katy and Katy has been the current carrying him along when his strength failed since they were old enough to swim without clinging to their mammas' dorsal fins.

It's a bright day - sun blazing down overhead and the heat feels like being caught in the doldrums when the sun is up and the sea below is thick with jellyfish. It feels like summer and Kris doesn't pay attention to the way the heat leaves him thirsty and itchy. That's what happens during summer. Kris has felt like this before.

Sylvie finds a radio station playing older music and they sing along with it. It's good to sing with other people, Kris thinks and adds his voice to the harmonies, weaving them together. 

Anna stutters and goes quiet but Sylvie plants an elbow in her side and she starts to sing again. They sing through the whole afternoon, with a brief break for ice-cream (which might be the greatest on-land invention ever, in Kris' opinion) where Sylvie and Anna swap places and Anna drives until the sky is red and the horizon half-swallows the sun.

They're talking about driving some more. At least, Kris thinks that's what they're saying. His throat feels stiff and it hurts to talk so he doesn't. The really deceptive thing about the heat is the harshness of it. Hot water is still water, wet and soft. Air is too thin and the heat feels raw so Kris doesn't notice how dry he's gotten until Sylvie turns in her seat to say something and nearly screams.

Kris isn't entirely present for what happens next. He knows the car speeds up, then he's being helped out of the backseat with Sylvie's hands slick and artificially wet against his side. His gills split and it hurts in a way that it hasn't ever before. Sylvie is humming, high pitched and too fast and she's steering him away from the car. Kris has to consciously think to move his feet and walking hasn't been this hard since the first time his momma taught him to unwind his tail.

He's not sure how far they go before Sylvie stops. Kris is struggling to breathe. The air's too thin, too dry and his lungs aren't working. He can't-

Sylvie steps back. Kris wobbles. There's a sudden push and he's falling. He crashes into the water like being swept up in a tsunami's pull and his gills flare, tearing open as Kris swallows a lungful of cool, airy water. The membranes close across his eyes and his legs meld back into his tail as he thrashes around to get his bearings.

He bangs an elbow off the bottom - too smooth and even to be natural. Kris looks around, feeling his brain engage as the water soaks into every millimeter of his skin and his fins unfurl. It's a pool, one of the ones the shallow folk use. Can't be more than eight feet deep, barely enough for Kris to feel covered and less than fifty feet from one end to the other. There's the taste of other folk in the water but no other heartbeats. A steady stream of bubbles churns through the water and Kris can feel the air as his lungs work.

Kris sends himself back up to the surface, breaking the water as carefully as he can. Sylvie and Anna are hanging off the edge and they startle back when he pops up. Kris remembers in time to keep his mouth closed when he smiles.

"Kris!" Sylvie deflates like a beached jellyfish and even Anna relaxes. "Oh thank god!" 

"Are you okay?" Anna asks, reaching out precariously. She's staring, eyes on Kris' long tail and the fins edged in gold in the dim twilight. Kris comes closer with a lazy sweep of his tail and Anna jerks back a little.

"I'm fine," Kris says, then has to amend it. "I mean, I will be. Is it okay for me to just stay here tonight?"

"Yeah," Sylvie says and forces a smile. "Manager says it's cool. He says we should start driving by night too and I think he's right."

"Isn't that more dangerous?" Kris asks. His mom learned to drive and taught Kris enough to steer a truck to the mall and back. He remembers Joshua says something about night driving being dangerous.

"Not compared to nearly killing you in the heat," Sylvie says firmly. "It'll be fine, babes. Anna and I will sleep during the day and we'll find hotels with pools on the way. There are a lot of octoids in California so all the motels have pools."

"You don't mind sharing water, do you?" Anna asks and Sylvie elbows her again.

"No," Kris says. He's never really spent much time swimming with other swimming folks. Even the other pods in the Deep are still _icythus_. He can't imagine it's going to be a problem. Sharing water with people isn't a problem, sharing water with hungry fish would be a problem. 

"That won't be a problem," Sylvie assures him. They talk a bit more about planning the trip but even the air directly over the water is dried out by the summer heat and Kris has to submerge again. Sylvie and Anna wish him a good night and go to get some sleep.

Kris doesn't sleep properly; the water's too shallow and he can't help the way every shift in light makes his dorsals bristle. He sinks to the bottom of the pool, tail curled around his torso so he can try to sleep. He's still soaking in water like a sponge and the pump that fills the water with air rattles and makes it taste of plastic but it means Kris can breathe in easy swallows, gills fanning wide enough to brush his own fins.

There are smooth metal bars along the side and Kris winds himself around one to keep the too smooth tiles from wearing away his scales. It's not comfortable exactly but there are vents of oxygen-rich water just above his head. He does manage to nap as the morning light spills into the water but he keeps being woken up by splashes and the fleeting taste of another person but when he uncoils, there's never anyone there. Kris doesn't think much of it.

Sylvie and Anna bring him dinner so he doesn't have to get out of the water and tell him they're going to head out about eight, just as the sun is setting. Kris has to ask rather sheepishly if they'd mind bringing him pants. His previous pair of jeans are shredded rags and Kris has spent the afternoon gathering up all the pieces he can find. Walking folk can fix their clothes, Kris remembers but he doesn't think these jeans are worth the effort to save. 

He rolls himself out of the water about half seven. The pool isn't really designed for an _icthyus_ ; the dock is too shallow for Kris to swim comfortably to the edge of the pool and there are steps to get up behind the privacy screen. Sylvie, who deserves a sainthood, leaves a robe by the side of the pool and Kris just pushes himself up and over the lip of the pool. He catches up the robe just as his tail splits and he manages to cover himself - or at least the parts walking folk get upset about - by the time the last of his scales have melted away.

"Kris?" Anna calls from the door. "Are you decent?"

"...I'm wearing the robe?" Kris says doubtfully. Usually when Joshua or Gina asked if he was decent, they were really asking if he was wearing clothes.

"Good enough," Anna pokes her head back in. "We're packing up the car but the manager says that there's a shower behind the screen and I brought you some clothes."

"Thank you," Kris says sincerely.

"Sylvie says we'll be leaving soon but you have time to rinse off if you wanna?"

"Cool," Kris takes the bundle of clothes and goes to shower. It's a weak drizzle of water that tastes of rust and limestone but it cleans the faintly chemical tang of the pool away. 

He comes back around the motel to find the car packed, engine running and Anna juggling three paper cups as she shoulders the door open.

"Hey, Kris," she says. "Have you ever had coffee before?" 

"No," Kris says, tasting the bitter-dark smell of it. "But my parents drank it when we came visiting."

"Sweet," Anna passes him a cup. "I have sugar and cream if you want it too."

Kris gets into the car, carefully balancing the cup. The back seat is lined with wet patches making the air feel damp and heavy. It's not helping with the heat but Kris thinks it's a lot more bearable than that dry heat. Sylvie drinks her coffee as they rattle down the driveway to the road.

The rest of the road trip is uneventful. Sylvie has bookings at every mer-friendly motel along the route for the day-time and the walking world is so much brighter at night than Kris expected. The music late at night is mostly older songs and they sing along together as the smell of coffee and sugary snacks soaks into the car. Kris even breaks his guitar out once or twice once he stops using the wet patches. 

The motels they stay at are mostly boring gray buildings that look weathered around the edges. Anna and Sylvie don't complain and they seem to be sleeping okay. They don't say anything bad about the beds. Kris spends his days in the shallow pools that the motels use. He's always alone. Sometimes, there'll be shadows cast over the water and once or twice, someone puts a foot or a tentacle in with a splash and is gone when Kris rises to say hey. It doesn't make sense. Kris' geography classes were a long time ago but he's sure that there should be a lot of mer-folk as they get close to California.

"It's the biggest population of mer-folk in the states," Sylvie tells him on the last day when Kris finally asks. "Mostly amphibs, you know? There are a lot of octoids in the Bay Area too."

"They're all shallows?" Kris asks and Anna glances away from the road.

"Well, yeah," she says with a grin. "Hollywood style, baby! All the pretty people are decorative. Everyone's shallow in LA."

"That's not what he meant," Sylvie sighs. "But it's kinda true. That's why you're such a big deal, Kris. Your people...you guys don't come out of the deep very often, you know? Most people haven't even seen pictures of you guys."

"There was that show on Discovery," Anna mentions and Sylvie rolls her eyes.

"Yeah, that couldn't get a single pod to agree to be filmed? That show? The one that made _icthyus_ sound like 'deep-sea caveman shark'?" 

"We're not sharks," Kris objects. "Sharks are dumb!" 

"Not the point," Sylvie says after a second's pause. "People think you guys are super fast, super strong and super scary. You guys used to eat other people-"

"We did not!" Kris interrupts because that is just not true.

"There are, like, history books about it," Anna says. "You guys would have a food frenzy when the slavers threw dead bodies overboard and fight the sharks for the dead!"

"We did NOT!" Kris sits bolt upright. "We don't eat _people_! My grandfather was in the waters then and he never talked about eating people. It's a sin to eat something that was someone."

That doesn't sound as definitive in English as it does in deep-song, Kris has to admit. 

"We never attacked the ships to kill people," Kris said. "We were trying to keep the dead from being eaten! We weren't going to save the bodies and then eat them ourselves!" 

It takes some arguing but Kris finally manages to explain the deep revulsion his people have to eating thinking people. It's not something that the walking folk have; they don't eat people but they are fascinated by the idea that some other person does. Kris' dorsals slice narrow gashes in the shirt he's wearing and he has to spend two hours explaining the difference between fighting with claws and teeth and hunting.

It's mostly fine because it spares Kris from the worst of traffic. It takes two and a half hours to get into the city. Even after midnight, the roads are clogged with cars. It's like a human thermal vent; all the people and lights bunched up together. Kris hasn't ever seen a city before and he had, rather stupidly, assumed it was just like a really big town.

There's so much noise. Kris can hear a hundred heartbeats almost close enough to touch, jumbled snippets of talking, cursing, music, engines, horns and clicking heels. The city lights are nearly day-light bright but harsher and in all sorts of colors that make Kris think of the tiny gleaming plankton in the darkest parts of the sea. He isn't sure where to look, how to look without being offensive. People here are all the colors of the skin and some people have their skin painted.

Kris tries to take it all in but it's like breathing through a seaweed bed; the air is there but there's so much else mixed up with it that he's left dizzy with the overload. Anna is swearing at the drivers and the folks walking across the road and some of the lights flashing in yellow boxes that hang over the road. Sylvie kept trying to explain things that were passing too fast for Kris to really see and getting interrupted or distracted.

By the time they make it to the hotel, Kris is jittery with the feel of the city thrumming through him and his dorsals, even flattened against his back, are quivering with it. Sylvie and Anna are checking into another hotel but they stay to help him unload his bags and guitar and hug him.

Sylvie gives him a phone, one of the small plastic boxy ones that Gary has and shows him how to call her.

"If they give you any trouble," she says darkly. "Anything at all, okay? You can call me."

"I will," Kris promises and she hugs him. Anna piles in and with the two of them so close, heartbeats long since woven into his new walking life, Kris can forget the big scary city.

"They're going to start auditions in the morning," Sylvie says, pulling away reluctantly. "We aren't allowed to talk to you during but we'll be there and you can totally call if anything happens. Good luck, babes."

"You're going to rock it, fish-boy," Anna says with a smirk.

"Here's hoping," Kris shrugs and feels the doubt crawling back in. "The last few seasons, people have been crazy talented."

"And now you're one of the crazy talented people," Anna insists and Kris has to hug her for that. "You are going to be magic, Kris. Just have faith, okay?"

"Yeah," Kris takes a deep breath that tugs a little on the line of his gills. "Faith, faith, I can do."

There's more hugging before they drive off into the noisy night. Kris picks up his bags and goes inside. It's cold inside, the air tastes of chemicals and artificial perfume and there are a lot of lights. Kris shrugs his guitar case into place over his dorsals and makes his way up to the desk.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" Kris says to the lady behind the desk. She looks like a Barbie doll and the smile she offers makes Kris think of a Mako shark darting in for a kill. "My name's Kris Allen, I was told I'd be staying here?"

"Did the person telling you this happen to mention a reservation?" The woman asks, lip curling slightly.

"Uh, the American Siren folks?" Kris holds out the piece of paper Sylvie says he needs and the woman takes it, her face curling in like a poked anemone.

"Welcome to the Hilton hotel, Mr. Allen," she said with an insincere smile. "Do you need someone to take your bags?"

"Um, no?" Kris doesn't trust anyone who smiles like that with his guitar. "I can manage."

"Room 1245," she says. "Thank you for choosing to stay with us."

She gives him a small plastic card and Kris edges over towards the elevator. He can read the numbers fine, and the words only take a minute. The elevator is strange - the only one Kris has ever been in before was the glass elevator in the mall back in Conway and that was nothing like the carpeted box he has to get into. 

The hotel tastes of detergent and a muddle of sweat and cosmetics although Kris doesn't see anyone else, he can hear televisions and conversations as he hauls his bags down the corridor to his room. His room is boring, a bed, a television and a small bathroom with a shower and toilet.

Kris gets his stuff put away in no time at all. He has a couple of pairs of jeans and shirts and t-shirts and underwear and he has his guitar. Unpacking doesn't take any time at all. Kris spends twice as much time tidying everything away as he did unpacking and he's still left sitting on the edge of the bed and fiddling with the seam of his jeans. He's too restless to sleep.

It feels like the heavy, clogged up weight of the river, murky and dangerous. Kris hates it. The room feels empty; if this was the sea, Kris' pod would have filled the water with encouragement and distraction. Here in the barren dry room, thinking of his pod just makes everything worse. It's ridiculous, Kris decides and pushes up off the bed. He knows he can sing and the only reason he's anxious is because he wants just get the damn show started. 

It doesn't help that he can feel the dry chill of the air-conditioning. LA is hot and dry, with just a tease of the sea in the air that comes in through the windows. Kris suddenly wants to swim. This is a big hotel, much bigger than any of the motels they stayed at along the way. There must be a pool here.

Kris follows the signs. There's the sound of water splashing and Kris can feel the muscles in his legs twisting in anticipation of the shift. The air is heavy with water and the floor is damp under his trainers. Kris gets as far as the corner, with the pool blue and shining behind glass windows.

Then he actually smells the water and stops dead. The water smells stale, not the sort of thing that Kris likes but not a deal breaker. What makes Kris' stomach turn is the chemical stink of poison. Just the smell makes Kris' lungs burn and the edge of his gills itch. He can't begin to imagine how it would feel to have that water on his skin, searing against his scales.

Kris goes back to his room and sits on the bed, watching the mindless drone of the television and trying not to feel how the air-conditioning was drying out the air a little more with every second.

The phone in the room rings the next morning and Kris gets to go downstairs with his guitar. There's a big car waiting to take him and a couple of other contestants into the studio where the competitions going to take place. Kris has seen those sort of cars before, though the name escapes him. He tilts his head and considers it.

"Hey," a nervous voice says from just behind him.

"Minivan!" Kris says as he's turning, which was not what he meant to say. "I mean, hello?"

The girl - Kris is pretty sure she's a girl at least - smiles and smoothes back her red hair. "Hi! Um, I'm Allison and I kinda got here late and I don't know anyone except my mom and I mean, I love my mom but she's still my mom and I don't wanna be like the kid in the competition - which I'm totally going to be but you're new and you look nice so I thought I'd say hi and-"

She broke off to take a deep breath and Kris smiled.

"I'm glad you did. I just got in last night from Arkansas," Kris holds out his hand. "Kris Allen. Nice to meet you."

"Allison Iraheta," she says and smiles. She's got a good voice, the vibrations of her undertones promising a powerful, rich sound that matches the warmth of her smile. "Wanna be audition buddies?"

"That would be cool," Kris hefts his guitar, "and we're both kinda small so we can fit your mom and my guitar into the same seat if you wanna?"

Allison laughs, a delighted peal of sound that makes Kris think of the pier bells and links their arms together. Walking folk seem a lot more tactile than Kris is used to but he doesn't mind it from Allison. She's happy to chatter away without needing Kris to say much. She's like a new-grown longtail, still shedding the guppy blubber and constantly amazed by the strength and speed she can achieve. Kris has a younger brother and he vividly remembers having to pull Daniel tail-first out of a reef in the middle of the kelp forests.

Allison is a little like that but mostly she is boundless, fearless enthusiasm and Kris thinks that whoever is going to find their harmony in her is a lucky person. Allison also talks a lot about the sort of thing that walking folk care about and Kris soaks it up like a sponge. Sylvie and Anna and Gary have been telling him how easy it is to pass but walking folk have so many things that they care about that Kris is finding it hard to keep track of it all.

He doesn't tell Allison that he's an _icthyus_. It's not that he's ashamed about who he is, Kris just doesn't want that to be the first thing everyone learns about him. Actually being in LA feels stranger than he'd expected and Kris has to keep flexing his fingers so he doesn't suddenly sprout claws and his fins are bristling which means that Kris is constantly riding the bleeding edge of a change. It makes him quiet, turns up his senses and tunes them in on the people around him.

By the time they get to the studios, Kris has slotted Allison's chatter into the empty place where his pod's song should be. She's a nice kid, brash and young enough to believe in anything. He keeps up an easy conversation with her until they get hustled into different groups. 

After that, Kris meets a few other guys; Mike from Texas who has a lot more faith than talent, Anoop who plays the piano and talks about underwater variations for most of lunch which is fun and Kris doesn't tell any of them what he is. It's half-intentional; Kris can't tell them before he tells Allison because she'd be hurt but Allison isn't even in the same room, much less the same group.

So mostly Kris just tries to be friendly and watches the flow of people when he isn't singing in front of sour-faced people with earpieces and clipboards. There are an awful lot of them swarming around and there's music in messy currents of sound. Kris mostly just listens. It's like visiting a pod that is really a hundred different pods with all their songs clashing and jumbling together.

It's after lunch when Kris is half dozing in a corner that he hears the voice. The resonance jerks him upright in his seat but air doesn't carry a song as well as water does and he can't pick out where the voice is coming from over the low chatter of conversation around him. Kris listens as long as he can before he starts getting strange looks and has to settle back in his chair. He gets to listen long enough to recognize the song is by Queen and that the voice is probably male.

Then he has to go pick a song for the judges with the thread of that voice still tantalizingly close. 

"Kris!" Allison comes zooming over as Kris is talking about harmonics with a piano player, who is a nice older lady and willing to work with Kris on his arrangements if he makes it through the week. "Oh, my, GOD! This is the most awesome thing ever! There are so many people here and there is so much music!"

"Yeah," Kris looks around when the call goes up for everyone to get back to the cars and Allison hooks their arms together, towing him along on a wave of gossip and enthusiasm. Kris isn't catching more than one word in three but the underlying harmony is a blend of excitement, nerves and giddiness.

Allison chatters excitedly for most of the trip back, her head tipping and her voice getting fuzzier by degrees until she's leaning into Kris and snoring gently. Allison's mom smiles fondly and Kris smiles back. She whisks Allison away and Kris goes back to his small, barren room to stand under the shower until his skin is slick and the faint patterning of his scales shows through. There isn't even a bath to stretch his tail and the ridges of his dorsals rise as the fins fan out under the patter of sterile water.

Kris opens his window, letting in the distant clamor of the city and the salty breeze from the sea. He doesn't sleep until late, tangled up in the sheet and half-dreaming of the Deep, still waters where even the light couldn't reach.

He goes back the next day and the day after, working and polishing the song he's going to sing. Allison rides in and out with him, her mom a benevolent shadow along behind them. Kris listens to some people singing and carefully doesn't think about how he's drifting around, listening for that one voice.

It is interesting to talk to so many different walking folk; Mike is from Texas and he talks about the 'sharks' that live in the waters near his family's beach house. It takes Kris half the afternoon to realize he's talking about the sharp-tooth shallows. They're good folk, more or less, and half Kris' pod has kin among them but they won't go deeper than a quarter mile under so Kris doesn't see them that often.

Mike keeps circling back to the sea folk, talking about how he learnt to swim with two of them circling him and his dad. There's a quiver of fear in his voice as he reminisces but the sub tones are all fascination, curiosity and a thrill of scandal.

It's not just Mike either; everyone Kris talks to has the resonance of that same fear/fascination when merfolk are mentioned. When Kris gets sorted into the group he has to work with, that's all they seem to be able to talk about. After the first hour, the group decides that they're not going to talk about politics, religion, guns or music that isn't the song they're actually working on. 

So everyone comes around to talking about sea folk. Danny's got a bit of prawn in his teeth about it, lecturing a whole group of them on how the 'Siren' in _American Siren_ was false advertising.

"The goverment'd never let an actual Siren on television," Danny says confidently. "They can't even come out of the water."

That's news to Kris and he looks up just as Matt, the guy with the smirk and the funny hat, asks Danny why he thinks that.

"Because they're sea-folk, duh," Danny sniffs. "Only the sand-water folk have legs."

Kris hasn't heard that term before and he turns to Matt, trying to keep his voice down. "What are sand folk?"

He must not be quiet enough because Danny hears him and turns around.

"Sand folk, they're the ones who aren't fish nor man," Danny's lip curls. "The ones that hog all the beaches and slime their way into good people's lives!" 

"He means the merfolk that can live in and out of the water," Matt explains. "You probably don't get that - you're in from Conway, right?"

"Yeah," Kris wonders why exactly that means he wouldn't know about the sea. There's a river after all and television and a whole raft of stories about the sea.

"Land lubber," Anoop teases. "Sand folk means the people who live in the shallow water or spend most of their time on the land; the Gators, the octoids, the swamp-snakes, that kind of thing."

"Oh, okay," Kris says. Sand folk must mean the shallows. It's an odd name but Kris doesn't think anything of it. Walking folk have weird names for lots of things. He goes back to rehearsal and gets his part of the song as polished as he's ever going to. This, according to Allison and the rest of his group, is the last stage of Hollywood week and will decide if Kris is getting a Gold ticket and going on to the next stage.

Kris hasn't seen the show cover this part of the process before - apparently it just gets a show or two before the real season starts. Sylvie comes out in the afternoon of the second day to check Kris is being kept hydrated and take him out to dinner. She has two big boxes of the 'stay-wet' gel, "enough to last a week!" 

"Thanks," Kris says a little doubtfully because the lady in the table next to them is staring at the tubes of polished blue 'Stay Wet' with wide eyes and pursed lips.

"You're going to be under the lights," she explains. "When you get through, I'll have a whole crate for you."

"Here's hoping I need them," Kris says and drinks the beer that came with his meal. It tastes weird without the salt-water dilution and it settles in his stomach. There's no buzz off it, not like there is in the sea.

"That's because you inhale it in the sea," Sylvie explains when Kris complains. "Alcohol straight into the pulmonary system. You guys must really know how to party."

"We don't really have any points of comparison," Kris admits. "We get some television but most of it doesn't make sense unless you know a lot about the land. Most of the pods don't care to so we only get basic cable and we don't usually watch it until the summer anyway."

"Why the summer, if you don't mind my asking?" 

"Food's plenty," Kris shrugs. "No need to go too deep to hunt so we can stay close enough to watch the shows."

"So you guys only see the finals then," Sylvie nods. "That makes sense."

"Yeah," Kris laughs. "I have emails from my whole pod asking why I'm not on TV yet. There's a lot more steps involved than we'd thought there were."

"Yeah, sadly TV is nothing like real life," Sylvie laughs with him. "You're nearly there, babes. Couple of more days and we'll be making preparations for the finals. Stay in touch, okay?"

"I will," Kris promises and they wait for taxis together in the warm dark and talk about a hundred little things. Kris is tired when he gets back to the hotel, but it's the good tired, the kind that makes it easy to curl up and sleep.

He's first down to the car the next morning, chatting with Earl the driver as everyone else straggles down. Allison is jittery with nerves, words tripping over themselves as she bounces from topic to topic until she runs out of breath and has to take a minute just to breathe.

"You okay?" Kris asks as she wheezes.

"I'm fine!" Allison says, smoothing her hair down and dusting off her clothes. "Totally fine! Absolutely fine!" 

"Uh-huh," Kris says. "Have you been drinking coffee again?"

"No," Allison hisses at him, looking at where her mom is reading a magazine in the seat behind them. "I have not been drinking coffee. I'm just nervous!" 

"What do you have to be nervous about?" Kris asks.

"They're nearly done with the auditions, dummy," Allison says like Kris is being deliberately stupid. "One more round of eliminations and they'll be deciding who goes into the final!" 

Kris blinks and looks around the car. There are only two other people aside from him, Allison and Allison's mom. He hadn't even noticed but Allison was right. When they finally arrive, Kris tries to count heads; there are a whole lot less people in the audition hall than there had been yesterday or the day before it. Danny is still there, so is Mike and Anoop and a lady called Megan who had been in Allison's group.

Kris can feel the excitement fizzing under his skin. This is it, if he gets past this, then it's down to the votes to stay in. He sings 'Ain't No Sunshine' with all his heart and gets sent to sit to the right. He's the first one being sent right and Kris really, really hopes that's a good sign.

Allison rocks her song and comes to sit beside him, bouncing in her seat and clutching at his shirt sleeve. Mike makes it to their side, so does Meg, Anoop, Mike and Matt. Then a guy Kris hasn't seen before steps up. He's really pretty, black hair and blue eyes like the sky and sea on a summer day with make-up like Anna's and clothes that are dark and pretty colors that make Kris think of tropical fish.

He smiles at the judges in a flash of white teeth and launches into his song. His voice is incredible and Kris recognizes the song and the voice together. It's _the_ voice, the one that he's been hearing in the echoes of the building since the first day. Kris' people aren't known for their superstitions; the ocean's too capricious to believe in things like Fate but there is one thing that every _icthyus_ ever spawned believes in; the other part of their heart's song, the harmony. 

Kris listens to the music and he's thinking of his dad talking about how he'd been hunting by the vents, where the water was one step from boiling and tasted of sulphur when he'd heard the song that hummed along his bones and gone swimming off with no clue where he was going until he'd found Kris' mom.

This isn't like that, Kris hopes. The guy is really pretty and his voice would draw in a whole pod but it's just because he's the first human, baring Allison, that could really sing. This guy, Kris thinks, is going to win.

"All right, thank you, Adam," the judge smiles at him and Kris repeats the name inside his head. He likes Adam's smile, the glint of his teeth and the way his whole face lights up with joy. Kris would like to get to know Adam better, he thinks and oh, Kris is so screwed.

"Dude, he so totally rocked that," Allison hisses, loud enough that one of the production assistants with headphones looks over. Kris smiles at her and they giggle together. Allison reminds him of Katy, back when she was growing into her rainbow-bright fins but mostly she's herself, a bright vibrant note in a chorus of mutterers and quiet voices.

"He did," Kris agrees.

"We should totally be friends with him," Allison declares. "I think he's a California kid, Meg was talking about an Adam from Weho."

"Weho?"

"West Hollywood," Allison says distractedly as Adam is waved over to their group. "Hi!!!"

"Love your hair," Adam says with a smile that makes Kris' heart beat faster. "Hi!" 

Allison preens. "My mom helped me but I wanted something fierce, you know?"

Adam settles into the empty chair beside Allison, folding his long legs into the cramped space. They chatter about colors and chemicals for nearly a whole minute before Adam pauses long enough to ask "So, who's the boyfriend?"

"Oh, Kris isn't my boyfriend," Allison says, cuddling up to him. "I mean, he's my friend and he's a boy but he's not dating me."

"I think the term is 'jail-bait'," Kris says. He was reading the internet on his phone. There are a whole lot of words that don't seem to fit or make sense with the English that Kris learned growing up and he doesn't want to feel any more like a fish out of water. (That comparison at least makes sense to Kris.)

He must get it right because Allison dissolves into giggles and Adam laughs. He's got a great laugh Kris thinks and feels his cheeks warm. Adam leans over to shake Kris' hand and smile at him.

"Hey, Kris, nice to meet you! I'm Adam Lambert."

"Kris Allen," Kris manages, catching himself before he can add the tonal flavor of his pod's song to the second name. "Pleasure to meetcha."

"Love the accent," Adam leans closer. "Where's it from?"

"Arkansas," Kris says because it's true.

"A sweet lil' Southern boy," Adam practically purrs and Kris' skin feels too small, too tight and he shifts a little. Adam's _Adamness_ pulls like a tidal undertow and Kris is leaning in-

-And Danny crashes into the chair beside them, making the metal legs screech against the slippery plastic floor and Kris and Adam shoot apart like minnows under a shark's shadow. Danny is breathing noisily through his nose and rubbing at his throat like he's been screaming. He might have been, Kris thinks uncharitably because Adam is smiling at Danny now.

Kris can see that there's something different this time. Adam's mouth curves but it's not the same kind of smile he gave Allison or Kris. It's sharper and feels fake. Danny is too busy puffing to notice Adam at first and Allison's leaning away from him and into Kris' side.

"Hey," Danny's eyes skitter along the colors of Adam's face and jewelry and his voice goes up half a pitch. "Good to see you, man."

"You too," Adam says, the undertones in his voice ringing false.

"I'm Danny," Danny shakes Adam's hand like he's holding onto a live eel and lets go real quick. "Wisconsin, represent, you know?" 

"Adam," Adam drags his hand over his leg, like he's wiping away Danny's touch on his jeans. "LA."

"I kinda guessed," Danny laughs awkwardly and gestures vaguely at his own ear. "What with the...you know?"

"Sure," Adam's smile bares his teeth this time.

"So," Danny says and there's a mingle of 'mean' and 'nervous' in his tone. "You must be the squid, yeah?"

"I'm an octoid," Adam says in a tone as cold as the Labrador Current. 

"Oh," Kris says, hoping to break the ugly tension suddenly humming between the two of them. "You're one of the sand-folk?"

Adam's hiss of breath is echoed by Allison and Kris looks back and forth between them. Adam's pale under the pretty colors of his make-up and Allison digs her elbow in under Kris' rib, into the soft fleshy part of his gills.

Kris oofs and gets his hand between the bruise and her elbow. "What?"

Before Allison can answer, the judges send the last person to take their seat and stand up to make some speech about how grateful they are for everyone who's shown up and how everyone's done really well.

"The production team will be talking with you," the lead judge finishes up. "And the lucky few who are going on will be told but we've been seriously impressed so you should all be really proud of yourselves."

Adam's in the first name called and he vanishes into the small judges' room without a backwards glance. Kris looks at Allison. "Why is he upset?"

"Because!" Allison hisses, looking like a puffed up Puffer and practically vibrating with rage. "That's fucking racist! You don't call a person 'sand-folk' like that!"

"But I thought that was what you called shallows?" Kris says, looking at Danny in bewilderment. "Danny and Matt were calling them sand-fo-"

"Don't!" Allison slashes the end off the word with a violent gesture. "It's a really rude and horrible thing to call mer-people okay? It's like...like calling a gay person a faggot."

Danny huffs, not quite a snort and Allison glares at him. Danny shrinks back in his seat and Allison softens her tone. "It's just nasty, okay. Don't do it again."

"I won't," Kris shakes his head. "I didn't realize! We don't use that name back home. I thought it was an LA thing."

"It's a jerk thing," Allison says seriously. "Don't be a douche, okay? Just call him Adam."

"I will," Kris promises and hopes, as the producers begin calling other names, that he's going to get the chance. His name gets called last from the left side of the stage and Kris' stomach is rolling like a spring tide.

The judges are smiling but the big giveaway is Sylvie who is standing just behind the door with Anna. Both of them are beaming at Kris. The judges congratulate him, Kris manages some kind of thanks and gets swept away by Sylvie and Anna so the room can be used for the rest of the folks.

"Congratulations!" Anna hugs him so tight that it feels like she's trying to squish him. "I knew you could do it, fish-boy!" 

"Thanks," Kris manages. She's pulverizing his ribs. Sylvie piles into the hug and they let go just before Kris passes the hell out. Sylvie gets them out of the audition hall and back to the hotel to get Kris' guitar and the rest of his luggage. Then Sylvie takes them to the beach.

It's a small, rocky little beach, tucked away between two concrete walls but there's water - real, honest-to-God sea water - and Kris is out of his clothes before Sylvie can finish what she was saying.

The water feels thick and heavy and wonderful. His gills easily filter out the murky chemicals, leaving the brisk taste of salt in the back of his throat. Kris swirls around himself before breeching and splashing the girls. Anna squawks as Sylvie laughs and Kris pulls himself up onto the concrete shore so he's on a level with them and his tail is still swishing through the water.

"Well," Sylvie says with a rueful smile. "That answers the question I was going to ask about how you were handling the hotel. So, you're going to be moving into the mansion tonight and I just wanted to let you know how that's going to work out. The production company have assured us that there's a pool. They want mer-folk to compete so they made sure to have the facilities on hand."

"That's good," Kris says with relief. So much time on legs makes him restless and itchy, the showers have kept him from drying out but they aren't scratching the itch of never being able to slip back into his own skin.

"There are a few issues which I said I'd talk to you about," Sylvie warns. "Firstly, they've agreed to keep the cameras out of that pool area but there's another pool that's for the humans and there will be cameras there."

"Okay," Kris says. He's got less than no desire to go near another of those sterile, sour pools so that really won't be a problem.

"Also, they don't want you to spend 'excessive periods of time' in the pool," Sylvie explains. "They want you to be at the lessons and events as much as possible."

"That seems fair," Kris considers. "What if it's getting too hot or too dry?"

"I'll be with you," Sylvie promises. "Or Anna or Mr. Hampton will be and we have the authority to ask them to give you space or time to rest up. They've agreed to that but there is one other issue."

"Oh?"

"There's another mer-individual competing," Sylvie says.

"I know," Kris says, a little gloomy at the reminder. He is going to have to find time to apologize to Adam for being so stupid. 

"Oh," Sylvie looks a little surprised. "Well, he's an octoid, that'd be a shallow to you and the company wants to be sure that you two aren't using the pool at the same time."

"What? Why?" 

"Because you're an _icthyus_ , Kris," Sylvie says gently. "Most West-coast shallows don't have personal contact with your people and your pods. You guys are like sharks in an aquarium and the producers don't want any accusations of foul play. They just want to be sure that he's not being stressed or scared by having to share the water with you."

Kris slid a little lower in the water to sulk but he couldn't exactly argue. What he could do is sulk until there was ice-cream because ice-cream was delicious. Sylvie and Anna take him sight-seeing until it's officially time to move into the mansion. LA is big and loud and kind of obnoxious. There are cars everywhere, there are all sorts of buildings and people all jumbled up together, everyone's running late and there's a frantic energy that fascinates Kris and wears him down in just a couple of hours.

He's one of the last to arrive in the mansion. Sylvie has to go deal with paperwork so it's Anna who comes down the stairs with Kris to the private pool. Kris has been given a key and warned that the door auto-locks. There's an emergency buzzer but the pool is in a hollowed out cave under the mansion and even halfway down the stairs, Kris can barely hear any of the noise from the mansion itself.

The Idol Mansion's pool isn't Olympic-sized, can't be more than ten feet long from one end to the other. But it's fresh briny water - carrying the sound and smell of the sea and Kris breathes in the flavor of his home. The knot of tension that's been sitting in his belly since the start of the morning loosens and he doesn't notice Adam until he hears the snort of an inhaled breath behind him.

"What's he doing here?" Adam demands. 

Kris feels himself bristle angrily at the tone in Adam's voice, even as the echo of his voice hums in Kris' ear. Adam looks every bit as amazing as he did back in the audition hall but now Kris can see that the glitter is the micro-pigmentation dots under his skin, now a swirling rainbow glaze in the humid environment.

"As I was saying, Adam," the smarmy producer who Sylvie had made cry into his coffee says, "this is _American Siren_. We have all sorts of facilities for sea folk here and it's important that everyone feels safe."

"I don't feel safe," Adam fires back. "This is supposed to where I go to let my tentacles down. I don't see why I have to share with the walking people!" 

"You don't," the producer assures him as he steps back from Anna's glare. "Miss Graves is not going to use the pool."

"I'm not talking about her," Adam snaps and his whole voice is vibrating with all the emotions Kris can imagine. Anger is the dominant tone but there's a lot more underneath his words. "I'm talking about _him_. Why is he here?"

"Same reason you are, Sparkles," Anna says tartly. "Just a little more pressing."

"Bullshit," Adam finally deigns to look at Kris and his lip is half curled, tucked up against his teeth. "He's not a swimmer."

"Nope," Anna says before Kris can say anything. "He doesn't like his water shallow. His folk come from deeper water."

"The deepest," Kris nods.

The producer, his nervous sweat slicking the air, edges close enough to ask Kris if the pool is suitable while Adam gapes. Kris nods but he doesn't look away from Adam. If there's an orca in the water, you don't watch the minnows.

"Seriously?" Adam sounds incredulous and disbelief rings through his whole body. "You're from _Arkansas_!"

"I didn't say that," Kris objects. "I said that's where I got the accent. I got walking-kin in Arkansas and that's where I auditioned. I never said that was where I lived."

"Where do you live then?" Adam sneers.

"Gulf of Mexico, this time of year," Kris says after a second's thought. "Came back from the Trench a couple of months ago. We're a wandering folk."

"Holy fucking shit! You're a SIREN!?!"

"I'm an _icthyus_ ," Kris corrects icily. Then, just because he can, he adds "Squid."

"I-" Adam inflates like he's swallowed a puffer fish, then subsides. "You're really a deep water _icthyus_?"

Kris hums in answer, the low peaceful tone his momma taught him to use when he was swimming in the shallows. Adam's eyes go very wide.

"Holy shit!" He comes over, suddenly fearless and circles Kris like a hungry hunter. His heartbeat is still too fast and too hard but it's excitement that flavors his breath. "You? You're a deep? I so did not see that one coming. I mean, they've been teasing that they had a real live siren but I didn't think they meant they actually landed a fish!" 

"You and Kris will have a timetable," the producer says, raising his voice a little. "You won't need to share the pool or spend any time together."

"I didn't think I was going to have to share at all," Adam says frankly. "I mean, you totally looked like some hayseed from the backend of nowhere! I didn't think you'd seen the sea in your whole life! I really did not think you were a siren or I would have had so many things I could have said instead."

"You're really shitty at apologies," Kris says because, yeah, Adam really is.

"It's not my fault," Adam protests, waving his hands. "I know how to apologize for getting you drunk enough to puke rainbows or convincing you to audition with your underwear on your head or making you question your sexual identity! But I have no clue how to apologize for not realizing you were one of the guys who used to eat my ancestors!"

"I did not!" Kris objects. "I mean, we didn't- We aren't cannibals, that shit's just a myth!"

"You eat squid," Adam says shrilly.

"Only when it's in sushi," Kris says coldly. "And sushi isn't exactly known for big portions or anything but you know what? That sushi portion is the only part of the squid that tastes good. It's not a big part and honestly, it doesn't taste nice even then!"

Adam stares at him and Kris is already thinking about how the publicity guys are going to have to juggle things to keep them apart when Adam bursts out laughing. He laughs so hard that he winds up folded over and giggling hysterically into his knees. Kris can't help the answering smile.

"Oh honey," Adam wheezes at last. "We are going to get on just _fine_!"

"Sure we are," Kris grumbles but Adam wraps an arm around his shoulder, spilling easy charm all over Kris and smiles down at him. "In fact...you know what?"

"What?"

"We're going to be roommates!" Adam declares. Anna and the producer gape at them. "Seriously, you're the most interesting person in the whole place, except for Allison, maybe? And she's a girl and underage and oh, oh, no, I am so not going there. Nuh-uh."

Kris lets Adam steer him back to the stairs while Anna and the producer whisper furiously to each other behind them. He can hear them pretty clearly but they're mostly arguing about whether or not Adam can do what he just did.

"I'm sorry about the whole bad word thing," Kris says after trying and failing to find a more dignified way to phrase it. "Where I'm from, we just call you guys shallows."

"I'd heard that," Adam says. "I gotta be honest here, okay? I'm like a total throwback. My mom's great-great-grandmother was an octoid or something and mostly, the only way you'd know that is because we burn like candles and drink like fish. I had totally convinced myself that it was one of those wild family stories, you know? Like how we had an ancestor in the King of England's court, that kind of thing?"

"Yeah," Kris grins. "Like how it was some great-great-great grand-aunt who inspired the Kraken?"

"That would be one awesome lady," Adam beams at him. "Seriously, though, I thought it was just a story until BAM! Puberty! And my tentacles dropped the same time my balls did!"

"That must have been weird," Kris says, biting his tongue on the question of what Adam's tentacles look like. "I was six the first time my mom took me out of the water."

"That's cool," Adam nods, looking fascinated. "Do you guys just know how to change by like instinct? Or is a whole thing you have to learn?"

"I had to learn to control it," Kris explains. "But it happens by itself if we get beached. That's where the whole 'Little Mermaid' thing comes from. If we get caught too close to shore, we can get beached pretty easy and we'll change to legs. My granddad says that it used to cause all sorts of problems."

"Well, yes," Adam says. "A strange new person on the beach is going to be scary."

"Most fisherman and their wives aren't put off by strangers that easily," Kris says with a shrug. "Mostly it was the naked that freaked them out."

"Freaked out," Adam asks with a wink, "or turned on?"

"In the fifteenth century, it was pretty much bad news either way," Kris says. "My friend Katy is a historian and she says that it's where the witch-drowning thing comes from because if I was beached and you threw me in a river, I'd shift back and be halfway to the sea before you could poke a stick at me."

"No poking with sticks," Adam nods. "No pushing in rivers, got it."

He sweeps Kris and his baggage all the way up to the room that Adam has been assigned. It's a nice room, spacious and well-lit and it has windows that open out towards the sea. The room smells of salt and fresh-crested waves and Kris can hear the crash of waves on the beach less than a quarter of a mile away.

It turns out that the room is specially picked because the stairs down to the pool are right across the hall so Adam or Kris can slip away when they need to. Adam turns out to be just as cool as he had been before Kris accidentally called him a name and he's totally flexible on pool-times. 

They agree to split their times after nearly an hour spent talking about it. Adam doesn't go swimming with other folks much, as far as Kris can gather, most of his friends are walking folk. He's used to having the water to himself and Kris isn't willing to risk his newest friendship on Sylvie being wrong about the panic in the water thing.

Adam swings back and forth from being really seriously proud of his tentacles to being embarrassed; he shows Kris some of the smaller tentacles. They're nearly impossible to see unless he flexes them and the micro-pigment dots ripple in a bright rainbow of color as the tentacle coils shyly away from Adam's skin. It's about as thick as Kris' ring and middle finger pressed together and there are tiny suckers along the bottom, probably too small to see if Kris hadn't known what to look for.

The tentacles also have freckles - _glittery_ freckles - and Kris has to bite back a smile because that is just so perfect. There are flashes as the tentacles curl in the air just above Kris' open hand. Adam is quiet and they both just watch the way the tentacles circle just short of touching Kris' skin.

Kris wonders how they feel - squid tentacles are cold and barbed and crush your flesh against your bones, octopus tentacles are warmer but have to be torn away by brute force, taking chunks of scale and flesh with them. Adam's tentacles must be warm and they look smooth, almost slick.

The thickest of the three currently waving around his hand dips towards his bare palm and Kris' breath catches.

Then the door crashes open and the tentacles retract so fast that they seem to disappear. Kris and Adam jerk apart as Allison bounds into the room.

"Hey guys!" She chirrups, landing on the bed between them. "Oh, you guys have such an awesome view! My room looks out on the parking lot, such a drag and my mom won't let me open the windows because there are, like, people smoking under the windows."

"That sucks," Kris offers, stealing a glance at Adam who is carefully smoothing down his sleeves.

"I know," Allison rolls her eyes then takes a look at them both. "OH MY GOD! You guys are friends again!!"

"I don't think we'd actually gotten to being friends before-" Kris starts. Allison gets a surprisingly strong arm around his neck and pulls them both into a hug.

"That is so awesome! I am totally relieved because, you know, I thought I was going to be caught in the middle of the whole drama and drama is good but wow, do I not want to be in drama between you guys. Seriously, you guys are both sweethearts and I so could not be expected to choose!" Allison is still talking even as Kris tries to arrange things so her stranglehold is a little less literal. "I mean, I'd have to pick Kris because he's been my car buddy and Danny would totally try to sleaze in if I didn't take steps. Also, Danny is so hitting all my creep buttons. Is he doing that for you guys too?"

"He's just a jerk," Adam says flatly, easing himself out of the hug.

"I don't think he's a bad guy," Kris says weakly. "I just think he's got some really bad ideas and he doesn't know how to shut up about them."

"Kris, honey," Adam says too sweetly. "That's a jerk. I mean, I'm not trying to judge people for what they think but I will judge the fuck out of them for what they are saying, you know?"

"I guess," Kris says. He doesn't really like Danny but he feels like the guy should have someone in his corner. Danny doesn't seem evil or anything; just oblivious. "So, what are you guys thinking for the next stage?"

Adam, it turns out, means to be fabulous. Allison is planning to rock the whole show so hard that it shakes before her. Kris manages to edge them onto the topic of music. Allison and Adam both know all these cool bands that Kris hasn't ever heard of. Kris can't really volunteer any of his musical favorites because they're all deepwater artists which means probably no-one else in the mansion has heard of them.

That's a seriously depressing thought and Kris spends like two hours listening to the two of them chatter and squeal over their favorite tunes while he feels like he's been beached in the Sahara; totally out of place and never going to fit in. Adam seems to pick up on this, despite Kris' best efforts. He settles a little closer to Kris with an arm draped over his shoulder.

They get called for dinner - which is apparently going to be some big celebration in a flashy restaurant - and Allison's mom comes looking for her. Adam promises to help her with the makeup if she wants help and Kris promises to let Adam do 'something' with his hair.

"So," Adam says. "I'm guessing you haven't told her that you're a merman."

"No," Kris squirms a little. "I don't want it to be a big deal, you know?"

"I know," Adam assures him. "But you are going to tell her?"

"I will," Kris promises. "Eventually."

Adam gives him a thoughtful look and then nods, pushing himself up. "So, before she comes back, I wanna hear all about the musicians you like. I love deep-water music but it is so hard to get it on land! You are totally going to have to hook me up."

"I can do that," Kris says and it's easy to let Adam pet his hair and work strange, sticky gel into it.

Adam gets Kris down to the cars and wrangles it so they're travelling with Matt and Meg and Allison's mom. Allison's mom is the one who starts talking about the different restaurants and how she hopes this place will have spicy food. Meg chimes in about how her son won't eat anything that has mushrooms in it and how he can totally tell if she tries to sneak a little in.

Mrs. Iraheta tells them how Allison won't eat any seafood because they're generally served intact and she can't handle having 'sad' eyes looking at her as she eats. Allison denies this as loud as she can and they spend the whole trip talking about food. Adam, when Kris shakes his head in response to yet another type of food, declares he is totally taking Kris out for food every evening they get. Allison promises she's going to introduce him to ice-cream 'done right!' 

Sylvie is waiting at the restaurant to steal Kris away for a few minutes. She smiles at everyone and tows him into a corner.

"We have a problem," she says right up front. 

"What? What sort of problem?" 

"The Pacific pods aren't happy with the idea of you competing on _American Siren_ ," Sylvie says bluntly. "They don't want you singing on television.

Kris says some very bad words, rage hissing through both sets of vocal chords. Sylvie winces a little. "I've talked to your mom, she says it's not precisely a surprise?"

"No," Kris grates out, "it's not."

The Pacific pods, at least the ones who live close to shore, are what walking folk would call conservative and what Kris' pod would call 'regressive'. They don't hold with walking folk, don't like them or their music and think that anyone who wasn't born with gills isn't a real person. They have all these stupid rules and methods and customs around courting and some of the weirdest hang-ups in the sea.

"It's going to be a problem," Sylvie says frankly. "The production company is freaking out and there's a whole lot of politics that I don't really get."

"I need to call my folks," Kris says distractedly. 

"You're Atlantic-based," Sylvie points out. "Doesn't that change things?"

"It might," Kris says tersely. Politics in the sea work differently - there's no such thing as 'nation', only 'territory' and Kris technically falls in Pacific territory right now. He has to call his folks.

Sylvie goes to make his excuses and bring him a bowl of soup while he makes his phone calls. He gets Joshua first try on his cell which is a relief. Joshua and Gina have driven down to the coast to watch the show with the pod. Joshua's at his dinner but he promises that he'll get Kris' folks on the phone to him as fast as he can drive down to the shore. 

"Your folks are hunting," Joshua says fifteen minutes later. "I'll have to have them call you back."

"All right," Kris thanks him and turns his attention to the soup while he waits. Sylvie is making a whole load of calls to her superiors in See to Sea to handle the production company. Kris gets sent back to the table to talk to the others with strict orders not to mention anything about the whole mess to anyone.

Adam has saved him a seat and Kris offers him a small smile. Adam is the center of attention, which means that Kris can just hang out beside him and nobody asks him any questions. The food is flat and Kris can taste nothing in it. It's all soggy and green with boneless, pallid meat. He eats mechanically, mind circling the problem in the water.

He'd known that this could be a problem. Territory had always been a transitional sort of definition; most of Kris' generation identified with a pod rather than a territory but Pacific-US pods were old-style folks. He just hadn't believed in this day and age that they were seriously going to try and stop him singing in front of people.

Adam stays close at hand and Kris only realizes that he's doing it on purpose when the dessert is served. Adam's keeping the conversation bouncing along so no-one cares if Kris doesn't say more than a couple of words. Kris bumps elbows with him and Adam looks at him a little puzzled.

"Thanks," Kris says quietly before Sylvie comes hurrying over and Kris has to abandon his chocolate and something dessert to go talk on the phone.

His parents aren't on the phone. They're rallying the pod. Instead, Kris gets to spend an hour talking with Katy and Bravo of all people. Katy is hissing and clicking her constants, a sure sign that she's furious. Bravo is effortless confident.

"The pod won't let them away with this," he says calmly. "You're not theirs to order around."

"Hasn't stopped them," Kris points out and Bravo bubbles with laughter. 

"They just don't know how stupid they've been. Your momma'll fix that."

"You went on this show with our support," Katy agrees. "You sang for this. You earned this. We're not going to let them screw it up."

"Thanks," Kris says, risking a sub tone of gratitude. The phones make it sound garbled but Katy and Bravo hum back. "I just...I don't know what to say to them?"

"Don't say anything," Katy orders. "Charles and Cale are looking into what we need to do to come over to LA."

"You don't have to-" Kris starts but Bravo sails right over him without even raising his voice.

"Is it or is it not tradition that the finalists' families get to come sit in the audience?"

"Well," Kris hedges. "Yes?"

"So we'd be coming anyway," Bravo's voice softens and even through the crappy phone signal, Kris can hear the warm hum under the words. "Don't worry, baby. We've got your tail."

"You do not," Kris teases because otherwise he'll think of how badly he misses them all and how very alone it feels here, surrounded by the shoals of walking folk. "Not anymore."

"I would happily have your tail," Bravo says, making it sound like a joke but with the same thread of honesty underneath. "Any time, any place, you name it and I will be right there just like old times. You're the one who didn't want it."

"Aaaaaaaaaand all that is ancient history," Katy points out loudly. "We're watching your blind spots, Kristopher. Trust us."

"I do," Kris sighs.

"So go back to your new friends, enjoy the competition and leave those slow-wit dinosaurs to us," Bravo says in the same tone that he used back when he was daring Kris to ride the high waves in the summer storms.

"Thanks guys." Kris says. "I really appreciate it."

"We know," Katy says airily. "We'll be up to see you soon."

"Looking forward to it," Kris smiles.

He goes back to the mansion in the same car as Adam and Allison, squashed in against the window by Adam who seems to be taking up an improbable amount of space but feeling the itch under his skin. Adam must feel the ripples of his scales pressing against the soft human skin of his arms and belly because he wedges himself more securely between Kris and Allison and keeps the conversation on make-up which isn't Kris' area and never will be.

They get back and Kris brushes his fingertips against Adam's back and whispers 'pool' when Adam tips his head back. Adam nods and sweeps the rest of them into the kitchen with the promise of some real, true 'taste of LA' cocktails, with optional 'mocktails' for the underage and uninterested.

No-one notices Kris slip away or the door closing behind him as he goes down the stairs to where the pool is waiting. Kris does remember to change his clothes first this time but he's changing even as he dives into the water, fins unfurling and legs sinking back into his tail.

The pool is frustratingly short but deep enough that Kris can find the steel grate that lets in fresh water and the songs and sounds of the sea. It's not exactly like being in the sea, the walls too rough to be worn and the tides barely a tug against his dorsals but Kris swims length after length, rolling so close the edges that water slops out onto the tiles. He wants to sing - wants to _scream_ \- but the dread and anger block his throat. Probably as well; if there's another pod in LA waters, they'd hear him and Kris is alone here. He can't hope to fight another pod.

So he swims until the fear and anger have been diluted and he feels the number of lengths in the stretch of his long tail muscles and the deeper pull of his gills gulping in great lungfuls of water. Kris slows, swimming another half a dozen lengths before he beaches himself on the slick tiles, rolling to grab a towel and pat himself dry. His legs are a little shaky as he gets dressed and Kris stumbles a couple of times on the stairs.

Adam is waiting, sitting cross-legged on the bed by the bathroom, which must be his bed if he is sitting on it. Kris blinks at him. Adam unfolds from the bed, coming nearly close enough to touch before he stops.

"Are you okay?" he asks and there's a whole spectrum of meaning in his tone. Adam is worried that Kris is okay/worried that he's prying/worried that Kris will be offended/protective/confused/friendly. 

"Yeah," Kris says and means it. "I just needed to stretch my tail. The pool's a little small so I might have made a bit of a mess."

"Just how big is your tail?" Adam asks with a saucy quirk to his mouth.

"Not that big," Kris says but a giggle slips out before he can help himself and they wind up leaning into each other, laughing so hard that Kris feels light-headed. They don't really talk for the rest of the night because they can't get more than a sentence into a conversation without the word 'tail' coming up and both of them giggling until they can't breathe.

Kris goes to sleep with the smell of the sea in his nose and the soft pattern of Adam's breathing and pulse in his ears. He sleeps through the night and doesn't remember if he dreams. Adam is up and gone when Kris wakes up with bright sunlight. Kris yawns and shuffles into the shower. Washing the salt out of his hair makes him immediately nostalgic for the smell of it but he can't go in front of all those cameras with his hair in spikes.

Adam's back when Kris comes out of the bathroom, eyes bright and hair wet, wearing the scent of salt water like a fabulous cloak. He smiles at Kris and disappears into the bathroom. Adam seems almost bubbly, leaving the door open as he puts on his make-up and Kris dresses. They go down to breakfast together, talking about Elvis and jazz. Allison comes zooming over and they talk the whole way into the studio.

That sets a pattern for the timetable for the pool. Kris swims at night, when it's dark enough that he can pretend it's the deep, cold waters and just for a few seconds, fool himself into believing it's home. Adam swims in the morning, almost every morning after Kris goes swimming. They don't talk about it, they both dress before they come up and they even have a whole unspoken communication thing going that lets either of them slip off to the pool when they need it. Kris notices that Adam doesn't swim on the mornings when Kris didn't swim the night before. Probably Adam is just as tired as Kris is by the workload.

Kris came to the competition expecting to work hard. He knew it was going to take a lot of effort to catch up to walking folk rules and preferences for music and he was right. They work for hours with coaches and producers until Kris' throat tastes raw and his legs are aching from so long standing. It's exhausting, draining and the most fun Kris has had in his whole life. He gets to ask questions, talk about music with people who live their entire lives with the notes woven through their days. It's like having a new pod, one of people who hear differently but share the same understanding.

Kris comes back to the mansion, too tired to move and he and Adam get into the habit of lying on their beds, windows all the way open, and just talking about what they've learned, what they've seen or heard. 

As much as Kris loves learning and polishing his singing and guitar playing, the quiet evenings when he talks with Adam might just be his favorite part of the day. He finds out about Adam's family - his parents are 'divorced' which means 'not married any more' according to Wikipedia and he has a brother called Neil who has never forgiven Adam for being the one born with tentacles.

Adam spends a lot of time with Kris - which Kris is totally not complaining about, for the record - but Kris doesn't really get why. Adam draws people in like a not-creepy angler's light and he could be spending time with so many people but he keeps looking for Kris at the end of every story.

Kris' best guess is that Adam's curious about the deep folk; he's got all sorts of crazy walking folk questions about Kris' people but mostly it's the sort of questions that Kris has been asking him. What are his parents like? Does he have any cute-as-him-siblings? Aren't little brothers evil Kraken-spawn from hell? How did he learn to play the guitar when he lives several thousand feet under the sea?

It actually takes a whole week for Kris to realize that Adam is only asking more detailed questions about the ways Kris' growing was different from his childhood. Adam is mostly curious about Kris. It's kinda weird to be the focus of that sort of attention; Kris has spent his whole life being just another person but the way Adam looks at him makes Kris feel extraordinary.

Of course, Adam might just not have time to ask all the questions he wants to ask. Kris is spending every spare minute he's not in rehearsals, swimming or hanging out with the others on the phone as his pod plans what to do next.

The pod that's kicking up the fuss is the West-Pacific pod that technically hold the waters around California. 'Technically' because the nearest they seem to have come to the shore is about thirty miles in the last fifty years. There hasn't been a territory dispute with Kris' pod for more than a hundred years but Kris is getting the feeling that that might be about to change.

His momma is _steamed_. There's been talk of how Kris is now technically part of West-Pacific and they're arguing that he should have to come live with them. Kris finds out about this suggestion two hours after his momma shoots it down at volume.

There are big things happening but as long as they keep happening outside the bubble of the show, Kris is happy to leave the whole mess up to his momma and his pod. The one concession that is being made to West-Pacific is that Kris being an _icthyus_ hasn't been made public. Kris technically isn't supposed to tell anyone and apparently the judges know that there is an _icthyus_ competing but they don't know it's him.

"Is this a ninja strategy?" Adam asks one night, sprawled out on Kris' bed. "You're going to fool them with your awesome and then bust out your tail for the encore?"

"That's be kinda messy," Kris points out. "Also, I'm told America is not ready for prime-time nudity."

"You wouldn't-" Adam pauses. "You totally would be naked wouldn't you?"

"Yup," Kris nods and flops down on the unoccupied corner of his bed, his hair still damp from the pool. Adam's wearing a t-shirt and his tentacles are loosely threaded through his bracelets. One tentacle is tracing the path of a water droplet down Kris' ankle. "And clothes don't survive the change."

"There speaks the voice of experience," Adam says and the tentacle curls under the tendon at the back of Kris' heel.

"We used to spend summers on land," Kris says mildly. "Used to go through whole bags of clothes."

"Ah," Adam rolls over so Kris can see his smile. "The Wal-Mart chic explained!" 

"The what?"

"You have abs, Kristopher," Adam pats his stomach. "And muscles and all the sorts of thing that you should be showing off and your jeans are cute but so very much the wrong size."

"They fit okay," Kris says a little doubtfully. "I think my Aunt Gina was expecting me to be taller."

He's not sure why that makes Adam cackle like a seagull and flail until he almost falls off the bed. The tentacle around Kris' ankle clamps on as Adam hauls himself back up onto the bed.

"Why did she think you'd be taller?"

"Tails and legs aren't the same length," Kris explains. "My tail's twice as long as my legs."

"Really?" Adam props his chin on his hands. "I thought it was the same. All the pictures look like-"

"-someone stuck a human top on a fish bottom," Kris sighs when Adam collapses into giggles again. "What's so funny about that?"

"Oh, Kris," Adam manages. "You are way too much of a country boy for me to explain. Maybe when you're older."

"I'm old enough to leave the water!" Kris objects.

"Is that like being legal?" Adam asks and Kris blinks. It takes a few minutes for him to explain 'age of responsibility' and 'legal adult' in a way that Kris understands but Adam's remarkably patient with him.

"Oh, okay," Kris says finally. "You mean being old enough to stop being a child?"

"Legally," Adam says with a smirk. "Some of us stay children in spirit."

"Okay," Kris nods, "that makes sense."

"How old are you?" Adam asks, "It just occurred to me that I've never asked."

"Gimme a sec," Kris tries to remember how many days there are in a solar calendar.

"No way you are old enough to need to work out your age," Adam challenges.

"I'm not," Kris says. "But we don't use the same calendar. We use the lunar calendar and you guys use the solar one, I think."

"Ugh," Adam lets himself sprawl back out. "Math! I don't care anymore." 

Kris laughs at him and tries not to feel how Adam's giggles go rippling up the length of the tentacle wrapped around his ankle.

The first competition show is that week so Kris and Adam don't get much of a chance to talk. It's more harrowing than Kris expects to step up and out on stage and sing under lights that feel hotter than the sun while he tries to keep his voice loud enough to be heard over the bedlam of noise.

It's his first real exposure to the judges where he doesn't have to introduce himself like they've never met. Paula seems nice, even when she slurs her words a little. Randy sounds like Bravo when he laughs and he seems like a good guy. Simon on the other hand...

Simon might have some Knucker blood for the bitter chill in his words. He's got the right build to be a land born water-spirit but Kris doesn't think he's a pure-blood. Still there are shifting weeds and murky, still pools in the undertone of his accent. Kris can feel his fins shifting against his back with every word Simon says.

He's not sure how much Simon is aware of the tonal cues he's giving off with every word he says and how much is just Simon being the dick he's supposed to be. Kris' teeth are on edge and he really wants to bite something. Simon hasn't even said anything really biting just rolling his eyes over how 'bland' Kris is.

Adam seems to do better but he still comes off stage and clamps onto Kris like a barnacle, breathing against the shirt at his shoulder in big, dramatic breaths.

"Oh. My. GOD!" Adam says finally, lifting his head but not letting up one tiny bit on the hug. "That was so much worse than I thought it would be!" 

"Really?" Kris says because he has heard Adam's insomnia-fuelled ramblings about how the judges are blobby aliens from Pluto, here to suck out his soul.

"Well, okay," Adam admits shamelessly. "Not quite that bad but oh my god!" 

"You said that," Kris mentions and Adam pinches him, accidentally catching his left dorsal and Adam's eyes go wide. Kris twists a little out of his grip but Adam's big and draped all over him so Kris can't pull away unless he wants to dump Adam on his ass.

"What was _that_?" Adam asks and Kris elbows him.

Allison comes off stage just in time to save Kris from Adam's question. Adam does keep an arm looped around Kris' shoulder the whole way back to the mansion and Kris keeps hunching his shoulders up against the delicate flickering touch of tentacles against his skin under his shirt.

Everyone thinks the judges were hardest on them and the whole trip back is a chorus of complaints and relief. Danny is loudest and he keeps talking over other people. The tentacles press hard against the ball of Kris' shoulder and one curls around the side of his neck, pressed close to where Kris' pulse flutters against the skin.

Adam takes a deep breath, tongue wetting his lips and doesn't say anything when Danny brays at one of his own jokes. Kris talks to Allison about Simon and how he only really knows Simon from the show and Allison talks about how Paula's makeup was uneven and made her look really blotchy. Adam mentions a couple of things that he would have done and they're back to talking about make-up.

Back at the mansion, everyone kinda wanders around. Everyone's tired of singing or just sleeping and there's a couple of arguments over the TV remote. There's more salad in the kitchen and some beer but no-one seems to want to settle down. Matt finds Kris and spends nearly half an hour talking to him about pianos and how he doesn't think the piano in the studio was tuned.

Meg is snarling a little as Danny offers her some advice about what she should have done on stage. Allison is trying to talk Anoop into letting her dye stripes in his hair while her momma knits in an armchair. The whole thing puts Kris in mind of his own pod taking shelter in a bay during a storm, when every square inch of water was full and they were all straining to get back to the open sea.

"All right," Adam announces, tucking his phone in his pocket as he comes back from the kitchen. "They're cutting us loose for the evening and I haven't been clubbing in _forever_. Who's with me?" 

"Sounds like fun," Kris says and Adam smiles brilliantly at him. "Do we need to dress up?"

"Club clothes are fine," Adam says. "I'll help you pick out some clothes that don't make you look like the tragic straight boy."

"Straight?" Kris twists around to look at himself. "Am I crooked?"

"Too easy," Adam declares while everyone else in earshot giggles. Kris doesn't get it but everyone else seems to have needed the giggle. Mrs. Iraheta doesn't seem keen but Allison has already zeroed in on her and is pleading her case.

"She might need your help," Kris points out as Adam steers him towards the stairs. "Her mom-"

"-is an awesome lady," Adam says without breaking stride. "And I am staying the hell out of her way. If Allison wants to come, she's going to have to explain to her mom why she should be allowed. Not my area; I haven't needed my mom's permission to go out for more than ten years and I don't think I have an up to date argument."

"Oh," Kris says and lets Adam drag him to their room. "I guess that makes sense."

"Thank you," Adam bows easily. "And now, on to important matters!" 

"Oh," Kris perches on the end of his bed and watches Adam dubiously. He's not sure what going to a club entails. He thinks the clubs here in LA are likely to be a whole lot pickier than the disco-bar back in Conway. "What's club-wear?"

"Clothes that make you look pretty," Adam says as he uncaps his eyeliner and goes to stand in front of the mirror. "And hot."

"I would have thought you'd be hot enough without the clothes on," Kris says, thinking of the hot, claustrophobic nights. Adam nearly stabs himself in the eye, peering around at Kris with super wide eyes. "What? What did I say?"

"Nothing that wasn't true," Adam says with a grin. "But we are going to have to dress you up!"

"These clothes are fine," Kris says. He's wearing clean jeans and a freshly laundered t-shirt under his plaid. It's nothing fancy but it's all clean and there are no holes.

"Those clothes are a crime against fashion," Adam shudders. "You should be showing your ass...ets."

"My what?"

"The six pack, the pecs," Adam says breezily. "You could just skip the shirt altogether. I swear it's totally suitable!"

Kris felt his dorsals flatten against his spine just thinking about a whole big club full of people, brushing up against his fins and touching them and grabbing- He clears his throat, wriggling at little at weird tingle at the base of his spine. He presses his legs together, wondering if he's getting sick.

"Kris?" Adam says and Kris looks up. Adam's tongue runs along his lower lip and that makes Kris feel the strange pulse of heat again. He blinks and looks away. There's no sickness he knows of that matches the way he's feeling. Maybe he should go to a doctor?

"I'm only teasing," Adam's weight settles on the bed beside him and Kris refocuses. "But it would totally be okay if you want to, I mean, my friends will be there and they'll make sure no-one hassles you."

"That's not really the problem," Kris says and catches the back of his collar to pull his shirt off. "I can't really pass without a shirt."

"I think you're more than pass..a..ble," Adam trails off as Kris turns so his back is to Adam and his dorsals fan up and out. They're not anything like their normal size, lifting barely a hand's width from Kris' spine but they're solid and the tiny veined patterns of colors shift and crisscross the whole length of the webbing. They taper into the small of his back, sinking into the skin. 

They're not very remarkable like this, as dorsals go and frankly, Kris wouldn't want just anyone seeing him like this. He doesn't mind Adam seeing him but the utter silence makes Kris fidget.

"I-" he starts, starting to turn back to Adam when he feels a barely-there touch against the thin edge of his fins. The shudder runs up and down his spine and Kris gasps. It feels really...strange. He twists his neck to look at Adam, who is staring at Kris' dorsals in a way that makes Kris feel very exposed. Adam's hands are spread out like he wants to touch but it's the tentacles snaking over his wrists that have actually bridged the gap.

"You have-" Adam breathes and Kris laughs, a giddy little gulp of sound. "Holy shit, Kris, you have _fins_!"

"Well, yeah," Kris says breathlessly. "Merman, remember?"

It's Adam's turn to laugh and Kris shivers. Adam's tentacles ripple as he laughs, rubbing against his fins and Kris can feel the heat as the patterns shift to warmer reds and golds. Bravo had spent hours some days, just playing with the edges of Kris' fins to get the perfect shades of gold. The memory makes Kris' fins quiver and the muscles along his spine bunch up tight.

"Easy," Adam soothes and his fingers, cooler than his tentacles but still warm as tropical seas, settle into the curve of Kris' back, where the fins vanish under the skin. If Kris had his tail, it would be where the softest scales would be - the ones that are practically human skin and most sensitive. "Wow, I mean-...wow. They're beautiful, Kris."

"Thanks," Kris says gruffly, cheeks hot.

"I can see why you wear your shirts loose," Adam says. "But I still think you would look totally hot without any shirt."

"No!" Kris jerks up. "I mean, no. I'd really rather not."

"That's okay," Adam assures him, hands lifting even as some of the longer tentacles coil around the base of his fins. "No one's going to make you do anything you don't want to, baby."

"I-" Kris trails off. Adam's being polite and careful and this is not what Kris wanted! He just can't quite find the words to describe how having his fins touched feels. There are no words for the song Adam's composing in Kris' belly with his touch. "It's just they're sensitive, okay?"

"That's okay," Adam says, still smooth as a becalmed sea and carefully, exactingly polite. "Your body, your choice. You never have to do anything you don't want to, not with me or with anyone else, Kris. You always get to say no."

Adam sounds like Kris' momma warning him away from the driftnets, serious under the calm of his tone. Kris wants to crack a joke, break the tension weighing them down but Adam looks so serious that Kris just nods and braids his fingers together in his lap.

"Right," Adam says briskly, straightening up. "So, clubwear that allows for fins."

"Bet that's not something you had to do before," Kris says and Adam laughs, leaning forward to loop an arm around Kris' waist. The gentle writhing of his tentacles against Kris' belly sparks another wave of heat and Kris' back arches a little before he can catch himself.

He doesn't catch what Adam says next, but that's okay. Adam is talking about colors and emphasis and seems happy to just keep talking without needing Kris to say anything. Kris props himself back on the bed, fins still fanned out and watches Adam bounce around their room, collecting up armloads of clothing.

Kris lets Adam pick out his clothes, shucking his jeans without thinking twice and Adam tugs at the hair on his legs with a smile. They bicker amicably back and forth; Adam keeps talking about something called waxing and Kris thinks it sounds hellish. It sounds like being flayed with hot sticky things and Kris hates the whole idea.

Make-up next and Kris follows Adam into the bathroom, watching with fascination as Adam paints delicate lines around his face and dusts powders over his skin that make the colours of his face look different. The glitter of his micro-pigment still shines through and Kris stares.

"You'll give me a complex," Adam mentions as he paints his lips with something sticky-slick and dark pink. It makes Kris' lips feel dry and he licks at them. Adam's eyes in the mirror go dark, pupil dilating and his hand going still.

"It looks ...good," Kris says, cursing himself for his utter lack of imagination. "It makes you look more...you."

"Don't tell me you've never seen make-up before," Adam laughs a little uneven and a whole lot of brittle confidence.

"Of course I have," Kris says, nettled. "You wear it every day and my aunt Gina keeps a whole shelf in her bathroom for it."

"Have you ever worn make-up?" Adam asks after he's drawn the last sweep of his lip in red-pink.

"No," Kris shrugs. "My momma says that it's not suitable."

"Your mom doesn't like make-up?" Adam says in that same careful tone he uses when he's saying something about Danny that he doesn't think Kris agrees with.

"Not really," Kris says. "Mostly it's powder and that dries us out and gets caught under our scales and it's just a mess, really."

"You tried wearing make-up?" 

"No," Kris admits. "Momma and Katy just let their patterning show when they have to dress up on land."

"Patterning?" Adam says. "What's that?"

"It's kinda hard to explain," Kris thinks for a minute and turns on the tap, filling the cup of his hand with water. "Here, let me show you."

He rubs the water into his face and concentrates, letting the muscles relax. Adam gasps and Kris looks up to see the colors rising up under his skin, dark sworls fanning out along his eyelid and out across his temple. The rest of the pattern isn't showing as clearly, ghostly vein-blue lines under his skin.

"Holy-" Adam reaches out, a tentacle rubbing against the delicate skin under Kris' eye. Kris blinks and tries to lean away a little. "What _is_ that?"

"Patterning," Kris says slowly because seriously, sometimes Adam can't keep hold of a thought for more than a couple of seconds and mostly Kris thinks that's cute but it's seriously annoying. "It doesn't glow unless it's dark and my mom can keep it from showing so much so it looks like she's wearing make-up, even when she isn't."

"That is so cool," Adam breathes and Kris can taste the oily dryness of his makeup. "I am so totally jealous of you right now, just so you know."

"It's just a pattern," Kris says, feeling all fidgety again. "You can change your colours and your patterns. I can't so it's not that big a deal."

"I am going to find make-up that you can wear," Adam declares, "and I am going to show you just how much I can do with your pattern."

"Cool?" Kris says a little doubtfully.

Adam laughs and hugs him again and goes hurrying around to pick out his own clothes and get read and Kris lets his patterning fade, just a little but he feels a little more like himself, like a mollusk poking out of its shell. He follows Adam back downstairs, shoulders loose and a smile trying to spread across his face.

Allison isn't allowed to go in the end. Her momma declares that Allison needs to catch up on her sleep and Danny has begged off but everyone else piles into one of the three taxis that pull up outside. Kris sticks close to Adam, feeling the agitated shift of his fins as the cab rattles along the road. The engine is jarringly out of tune and the plastic-leather seats stink of puke and sweat and the sticky-saccharine smell of alcohol.

The club Adam takes them to is so loud that Kris can't even think and he has to fumble for the set of earplugs that Sylvie told him to carry everywhere. The driving beat is a sucking undertow, running under the changing songs and the shouting voices and too-shrill laughter from the people packed in like a shoal caught in a dolphin feeding ball. Adam seems to light up as the music and the stink spill out into the comparatively quiet street and Kris closes his mouth on the plaintive wish to go back to the mansion.

Instead he closes his eyes and tries to catch the rhythm of the song, humming deep in his second larynx until he can catch the common thread of the melody. It makes it easier to relax and Kris opens his eyes. They seem to have attracted attention, the drift of the crowd bringing a lot of bright-eyed people thronging around them.

"Come on," Adam shouts in his ear. "There's some people I want you to meet."

Kris lets Adam tow him along, the crowd shifting with them. It's still really hot but as they work their way deeper into the club, Kris relaxes a little more. The club isn't so bad. Adam weaves through the dark corners, pulling Kris in his wake.

Adam's people turn out to be the sparkliest, prettiest people in the whole club. They're all friends from way back, their voices blending into a comfortable harmony. Adam introduces them and Kris tries very hard to memorize the names and voices. There is Scarlett, Brooke, Sasha, Brad, Isaac and at least fifteen others that Kris barely takes in during the whirlwind introductions.

Adam runs through the introductions with the easy speed of someone who's known these people so long that he's forgotten that they were ever strangers. On the port fin, it's nice to know that Adam is so comfortable with Kris that he assumes Kris is just part of his group. On the other fin, Kris is going to have to try to pick up names by eavesdropping and hoping he gets it right.

Kris gets introduced as one of Adam's 'nautical cousins' which means that he gets netted by Scarlett, who does some work with See to Sea and a loose sub-circle of the group. It doesn't take long for Kris to find out that they have some seriously weird ideas about life under the sea.

Marriage seems to be one of those big issues. Apparently a lot of people in Adam's group are very concerned about getting married. Kris mostly nods along and finally ventures to answer a question when he thinks he's more or less got the idea of what they're talking about. 

"Undersea marriages are valid on land," Kris assures Scarlett, "and undersea folks will recognize a land marriage." 

"Well, yeah," Sasha rolls her eyes. "But we've only just got gay marriage as an issue now. Forgive me for not wanting to crawl back into the water and erase a hundred years of progress."

"Gay marriage?" Kris asks Scarlett quietly. 

She looks at him a little warily. "It's a marriage between a girl and another girl or a guy and another guy."

"Oh," Kris says. "That kind of gay."

"Yeah," Sasha rolls her eyes. "That kind of gay. We're finally getting to the point where people are supporting it and I'm tired of fighting politicians on land. I'm not going to start fighting under the sea!"

"Are you not allowed to marry someone who is the same-" Kris waggles his hand at his legs.

"Not yet," Scarlett sighs. "All about a mother and a father."

"Oh," Kris says, enlightened. "Procreation! But I thought there were, like, seven billion humans. Are you really that endangered?"

"No, no," Scarlett shakes her head.

"Do you have to be married to have children?" Kris asks. "I don't really get the whole sexual reproduction part but I don't remember the biology textbook talking about marriage."

"Okay, some people think you need to be married but that's a moral thing," Scarlett explains. "Biologically, you need a working dick and working uterus."

"So, why do you have to marry to procreate if you're not nearly extinct?" Kris asks, frustrated.

"It's the way things have been done for years," Scarlett starts, a little uncertainly but Brad elbows his way into the conversation.

"Don't your people marry to procreate?"

"No," Kris says. "If a pod is under strength then breeding relationships will be set up but once the children are swimming and the pod is back to a proper size, they'll go back to their own partners."

"And you fish-folk don't mind a guy hooking up with a guy for filthy, non-procreating sex?" Brad's drawl makes the words obscene.

"Well, sex isn't about reproduction," Kris points out. "We don't bear, we spawn."

"Like, eggs?" Sasha says dubiously.

"Yeah," Kris shrugs. "It's not a big deal - egg-bearers lay their eggs, sires fertilize them and anyone who wants to be a parent takes care of the viable eggs until they hatch."

"They adopt?" 

"Well," Kris tries to remember what 'adopt' means. "They raise the kid and they're parents so if that's adoption I guess they are."

"What's sex for if you don't get babies out of it?" Brooke asks.

"Pleasure," Kris says easily. "It builds a bond between you and your partners."

"Partners?" Brad sputters. "You guys are poly?"

"What's poly?" Kris asks.

"Something we are not getting into here," Scarlett declares firmly and sweeps Kris off to the dance floor. Dancing in the dark with the occasional strobing light turns out to be a whole lot of fun and Kris is sweaty and laughing when he feels Adam's tentacle coil into the gap between his shirt and his pants. It's ticklish and Kris is too breathless to laugh properly before Adam is filling the space behind him with his warm weight.

They dance for hours that pass like minutes and Kris goes back to the mansion on a wave of optimism and the strange bubbly alcohol that Adam's friends bought him. They tumble up the stairs together, giggling over nothing as everyone else tries (and fails) to get to bed quietly. Lying in bed that night, humming songs back and forth with Adam to cover the occasional crash from the other rooms, Kris thinks that everything is going well. He's really enjoying himself here.

So, naturally, the next morning it all goes straight to hell.

Kris must have eaten Simon's puppy in a previous life or something because Simon _hates_ him. Nothing Kris does is good enough, everything he tries is wrong and he should just pack up his bags and go home. It's made worse by the way Simon's voice makes Kris' fins bristle.

It gets worse as the mansion starts to empty, all Kris' new friends whittled away by the judges and the fickle voting public. Kris starts to swim more and more often, leaving Adam and Allison to talk about make-up or whatever and working his frustration out in a froth of foam and water. 

Adam is worrying; Kris can tell because his tentacles snag Kris at every opportunity, threading through his belt-loops and attaching sucker-first onto any skin Kris leaves bare. It gets him through a couple of Simon's more poisonous diatribes, the tightness of his skin where the suckers clamp down reminding Kris that this isn't the sea. He can't sing here, not the sort of songs that he wants to sing at Simon's sneering face.

The song vibrates through his lower larynx, kept mute only by Kris' absolute determination not to fuck this up. His pod have come West, crossing over in Mexico and swimming up. They're in the Bay, so close that Kris can almost hear them when the wind comes in off the sea.

That night, while Simon is sneering over his latest arrangement, Kris goes outside, where the air is wet with the promise of rain fresh from the sea. He gets a text message from Bravo's phone but the accidental caps are all Katy. 'zORRO iN bAY. mISSES u.'

Kris doesn't mean to, really he doesn't. Until Simon has to add a venomous little aside that he 'never would have guessed' Matt would be going home before Kris. Frustration boils to rage and Kris doesn't even wait for Allison and Adam - just goes right outside and into the first car.

His bad mood is simmering in his lower chest, humming through his lower larynx and the driver doesn't even wait for instructions, just puts the car in gear a drives. He doesn't seem that sure about where he's going but he gets Kris to the mansion eventually and parks behind the other cars.

Kris goes straight for the pool, shucking his clothes on the stairs and throwing them into a corner before he dives into the pool. The change is harder, more violent than it normally is, Kris' scales tear through his skin and his legs snap together so suddenly that it would hurt if the bones weren't already fluid. Kris' first deep breath sends water rushing through the rage. The song drowns the splash and Kris doesn't even try to swim the few lengths.

He spins the water into a maelstrom, twisting and churning and letting the anger come out in movement and self-contained spirals of tail and fins. By the time he's loose enough to float, gills working to get air back into his bloodstream, the anger is spent and the whole room is wet.

Kris rolls onto his back, tail curling back so his fins fan out around his head. The last of the bubble dissipate through the water and Kris catches a flicker of movement in the corner of the poor. Kris rolls, tail bunching up and fins flaring out.

There's a squeak, barely loud enough to carry through the water and Kris blinks, pupils widening to see through the shadow. The glitter makes him jink to the side and there is a flurry of tentacles. Kris' rational brain adds 'glitter' to 'tentacles' and makes Adam. A second later Kris remembers why he isn't supposed to be in the same pool as Adam and he pushes himself back with a sweep of his tail.

Adam comes out of his corner, eyes white-rimmed. Kris can't hear fear in his heartbeat but the points of glittery colour on his skin are flaring and contracting so fast that Kris feels half-blinded. Adam comes out slowly, tentacles creeping across the rough edge of the wall. He keeps watching Kris who tries to stay as still as possible.

It's the first time Kris has seen Adam with his tentacles out and he can't help staring. Adam's tentacles spread out from his arms and legs like four different fans in the water. In the water, they're translucent at the tips, thickening as they get closer to Adam's body. The glittery freckles sparkle like stars in the dim light. Adam's gills look to be in his neck and his whole chest ripples as he breathes. It looks like the defensive display of the squids, all puffed up and big to look at. 

...and that really wasn't the right adjective to thinking of when his eyes drifted a little south. Most guys would have been embarrassed by a comparison between their dick and their tentacles. From what Kris could see, despite his best-intentioned efforts, Adam had nothing to be ashamed of. Kris flexed his tail, hiding his pigment-shift behind his fins.

Adam opens his mouth and the sound of his voice comes out with bubbles that muffle it. Kris tilts his head, watching Adam tangle himself up in his own tentacles as he tries to gesture. Kris points up to the surface and Adam nods, then flounders along behind him the whole way up.

Kris breaks the surface easily and Adam breaches a few seconds after him in a spray of water.

"You okay?" Kris floats a little closer, trying to gauge a 'safe' distance but not wanting to leave Adam to get his gills muddled up with his lungs and suffocate right there.

"Fine," Adam coughs, waving a dozen tentacles through the water. One of them snags on the soft fin running down Kris' forearm and latches on. It feels...weird. Kris' fins are all nerve-endings really, letting him measure the current, the tides, the weight of the water. Here on the surface, barely deep enough to get wet, Kris can feel every one of the suckers attach itself like a kiss.

"Oh," Adam says and tries to pull back. "Shit, sorry!"

The tentacle seems to be well and truly attached and he pulls Kris closer. There's a few confused seconds where they tussle back and forth and more of Adam's tentacles snag on Kris' scales. Then Kris bumps hard into the side of the pool and they both grab for the bank.

"Okay?" Kris checks, forgetting to relax his lower larynx. His voice sounds odd in the air and Adam tilts his head to look at him. Two more tentacles.

"I'm fine, Are you okay? You sound...." Adam flails about with his tentacles. He manages to peel off the tentacle that started it all but another curls around Kris' tail, just under the waterline. "Fuck, sorry."

"Sorry," Kris relaxes his larynx, letting his gills mostly close and his voice lifts back up to the pitch Adam's familiar with. "Better?"

"How did you do that?" Adam demands. "How long have you been able to do that?"

"All my life," Kris shrugs, fins echoing the movement. "That's what I sound like normally."

"Seriously?" Adam comes a little closer, poking a Kris with what feels like hundreds of different tentacles. Kris twitches and thrashes around when Adam's tentacles find the ticklish places normally tucked away under his fins. "So why is this the first time I've heard it?"

"Because," Kris says, accent thickening a little as he mimics his mom's favorite mantra, "walking folks get strange and easy when you do so you don't."

"Okay, point to Mamma Allen," Adam says, his tentacles still exploring. "I would do unspeakable things if you asked me in that voice but I still don't see how you do it."

Kris shakes his head and lets his secondary larynx contract slightly. "It's all in the breathing."

"Holy shit," Adam breathes, tentacles coiling against Kris' chest. "That-that's seriously something."

"We're not called sirens for nothing," Kris shrugged, "I guess."

"Okay," Adam spreads his tentacles to anchor them both against the wall. It's weird to have someone so close while his tail is out. Kris' pod is plenty affectionate but they're all big enough that they can't fit together without a lot of effort. Adam's tentacles fill all the spaces that Kris didn't even know he'd left open. "Second question, then we'll get to the whole water things-"

"Okay," Kris says a little uncertainly.

" _Why_ are you not _using_ this!?" Adam demands. 

"Using...?" Kris asks.

"Okay, your voice is amazing even when you're not talking all deep and..." Adam shudders expressively. "Why are you not singing with that?"

"I'm not supposed to," Kris starts.

"Oh, fuck that," Adam says. "Who says?"

"The West-Pacific pod," Kris says and somehow, with the words out there like that it doesn't seem as significant or impressive as it should. "They don't want me singing at all, much less-"

"Who are these West-Pacific jerks?" Adam says contemptuously. "You're here to win, baby, not to make some old farts stuck in the weeds happy. You are totally amazing and you are going to win this thing _if_ you stop being so afraid of what people are going to think of you!"

"I appreciate the pep-talk," Kris says. "Really, I do but Simon-"

"Oh, fuck Simon too," Adam snaps then pauses. "Actually, don't fuck Simon. Just stop letting him get to you." 

"I'm trying," Kris winces at the whine in his voice.

"Stop trying," Adam advises. "Just do it. You made it this far, baby."

"All right," Kris' tail swishes reflexively and Adam's tentacles clamp down a little harder on his torso.

"Is that-?" Adam says, voice going high like a too-tight guitar sting. "Are you okay?"

"Just, not used to being so still," Kris tries to keep his tail mostly motionless. "Normally in water, I'd be moving."

"An explanation for the fidgeting," Adam says teasingly and they both laugh more than the joke warrants. Adam's expression is avidly curious. This close, Kris can see how Adam isn't wearing makeup, how naked it makes his face look and feels shy and clumsy all of a sudden. "But, wow, this is what you look like normally?" 

"Yup," Kris says and manages not to coil his tail, like a barely-grown dolt who's just had his voice sink. He lets Adam's tentacles wander, rolling a little when they get too close to sensitive areas. Kris isn't ashamed of his body but it's strange to have so much attention, so many points of contact. Adam looks at him like he's the latest 

"Wow," Adam says finally, tentacles settling into a more comfortable grip - though some of the smaller tentacles keep trailing random patterns along Kris' scales. "...yeah, I have no words. Just, wow."

"Good wow or bad wow," Kris asks jokingly but his voice twists in his throat and it comes out more serious than he meant it.

Adam's lips twitch into a smile and his eyes go dark as he looks down at Kris. "Good wow, baby, _really_ good."

Kris' tail swishes again, an embarrassed twitch and accidentally pulls them both away from the bank. Adam's eyes bug out a little and his tentacles clamp onto Kris so tightly that Kris can't keep himself still and they go plunging through the water.

Kris' gills are strong enough to work despite the tentacles digging into tender skin and he keeps his head under the water. Adam's just hanging on, swallowing huge gulps of air and water. Adam's mom must not have taught him how to breathe through both at the same time so Kris' tail drives down, submerging them both. Adam's mouth opens in a wordless shout as the water rushes around them.

Kris breathes deep and lets his fins flutter around them both. All the tentacles not clamped onto him drift around them, the glitter refracting through the bubbles. He sings to Adam, blends Queen's 'Friends will be friends' with the deep-song that means 'safe' and 'I've got you'.

Adam's eyes stay wide but his tentacles relax just enough that Kris can feel the prickle of pins and needles in his arms. Kris keeps singing and Adam's tentacles keep loosening until it feels like Kris is floating in a seaweed patch. He rests his hands on Adam's shoulders, feeling the muscles work as Adam gulps in more water and the pinkish-red gills tucked under his jaw line flare.

Kris dares to move his tail, gently sending them gliding through the water. Adam's eyes startle wide and his hands grab for Kris' shoulders but he seems to understand almost immediately and his tentacles churn the water, lightening the drag. Kris dares to go a little fast and Adam's mouth opens in a smile. Kris tows him carefully around the pool, singing all the way. 

Adam stops trying to help, sliding his tentacles around Kris, loose enough to let Kris' muscles move. He settles his arms around Kris' neck and Kris gets a little more adventurous, diving and looping slowly through the water. It's almost a courtship dance, though Kris has never had a partner who has matched him this perfectly.

As if he can hear what Kris is thinking, Adam stiffens suddenly and angles his lower body clear of Kris' steadily moving tail. Jarred out of his mellow mood, Kris brings them back to the surface, breaching carefully so Adam doesn't choke again. Adam's hair is plastered to his skull, his freckles show clearly without the makeup clouding his skin and his eyes look so bright compared the murky water around him. His cheeks a little pink and he's breathing faster than he usually does. He looks beautiful and Kris looks away, to his own fins and the long shadow of his tail.

"That was..." Adam shook his head, spraying them both with water, "...so freaking _cool_! Why have we not been swimming together every night."

"You were afraid I'd eat you?"

"Oh, honey," Adam's smile is wicked and makes Kris' tail twitch in an undulating shudder that flicks his fins. "You could just eat me up with a spoon and I'd be begging for more."

"You're weird," Kris laughs and lets go of Adam to brace his elbows on the side of the pool. "Hope I didn't soak your clothes."

"It's cool," Adam shrugs. "They have robes in the little cupboard by the stairs."

"They do?" Kris looks at where his own clothes are wadded together in a big puddle. "I might have to grab one."

"I'll get them," Adam steals a glance at Kris and sighs. "Guy rules?"

"Guy rules?" Kris asks, lost.

"Just..." Adam flails a little. "No judging me, okay?"

"Okay," Kris says and Adam's tentacles crest the edge of the pool in a wave, suckering on to the stone and Adam pulls himself out carefully. Kris can't help but look, Adam makes it all look so much more graceful than Kris' ungainly roll onto the land. Adam looks like one of the old carvings of sea gods that Kris had seen in the Mediterranean. Adam's tentacles bunch around his crotch as he straightens and Kris can just see his dick, flushed red and standing up, through the restless nest of them.

Walking folk are peculiar about being naked, Kris remembers belatedly and he looks away as Adam crosses to the cubby hole. The pool feels empty without the tiny ripples of Adam's tentacles and the bubbles of his breath. 

Adam comes back, bundled up in his own robe and holding out another. "How do you- do you need a hand?"

"I can manage," Kris says. 

"No-one likes a martyr," Adam snorts. "Come on, what do you need?"

"If you steady me," Kris considered. Adam should be strong enough to hold him long enough for Kris to get his feet under him. 

"I got you," Adam says with easy assurance and Kris nods.

He lets himself slide back under the water, angling himself better before launching himself back up. The sudden breach takes Adam by surprise and he backs up a couple of steps but he keeps his hand out and Kris latches on, forcing the change because he doesn't know how long Adam can hold him. His tail separates, tearing in two. Kris sucks in a breath, toes catching on the very edge of the stone and he stumbles forward.

Adam catches him, steadies him and lets Kris catch his breath against Adam's chest. Kris is coming to hate that first breath after his gills seal when his lungs pull in thin air and press against his ribs.

He doesn't try to explain but that's okay. Adam doesn't ask him to.

Instead he brings Kris upstairs and they putter around for the evening. Adam stays close all the next two days, not always speaking but his tentacles creep out and touch Kris every time they're close enough and Kris gets used to it, lets the reminder ground him when he sees clips of Simon's sneering face on the television in the background.

He wants to prove Adam right, wants a way to make Simon eat his words and Kris goes for his iPod, finds all the songs that he liked enough to bring into the deep with him. There's nothing new to be done with the old songs, the country ones that his momma likes are all too similar to the stuff he's done before. He needs something new and late at night, when even LA has gone so quiet that he can hear the waves, he finds it.

It's a song he's always liked, a melody that could have come from one of his folk that makes the whole thing ring with emotion and that, Kris thinks, he can totally work with.

He works hard on it and doesn't really talk to Adam about it. It's harder to talk about it in the busy, crowded world than it was in the pool. He still talks to Adam as easily as if they'd been swimming together forever but that just makes it harder. Kris wants Adam to look at him like he had in the pool, but not because of what Kris is but because of what he's _done_.

So when the time comes, Kris walks out onto stage with his skin still slick with the hydrating gel and his guitar over his shoulder. Ryan's flashing his teeth and Kris is so hyped up for this that he can hear the whirr of the cameras, the breathing of the crowd and he knows that somewhere behind the lights, Katy and Bravo and his mom are watching.

Kris settles his guitar as Ryan talks, more listening to his tone as he gets ready to play. He can hear Adam's heartbeat, too close to be in the dressing room and Kris' smile when Ryan gets to the introduction is mostly meant for Adam. He answers Ryan's carefully chosen questions and breathes in, letting his lower larynx contract.

The guitar is there for the comfort and to give him a moment to gather breath. This is going to be either a triumph or a disaster. The West-Pacific pod is going to want his _tail _. Kris smiles at the camera and lets all the 'do not give a fuck' he's been practicing spill out into his voice and sings.__

__Kris comes off stage, the thunderous applause still ringing in his ears._ _

__"Oh my God! Kristopher fucking Allen!" Adam comes crashing through the crowd of production staff like a glittery whale through the shoals to sweep Kris off his feet in a flood of exuberance. "That was fucking awesome! That was-oh my god!"_ _

__Kris laughs against the sweat-damp skin of Adam's neck and clings like a barnacle. He can still feel the ache of the song in his throat and lower larynx but it's the first time he's come off stage without a hundred different ways he could have done better. The judges might still kick him out of the competition but Kris is going out with his head held high._ _

__"You were so fucking awesome," Adam says against his hair, laughter bubbling up as he hugs Kris tighter. There are other people who came crowding around to congratulate him but Adam stays close, his hand warm on Kris' back while Allison hugs him. Kris is giddy with success and the glee of seeing Simon's shock._ _

__The energy fizzles in his blood and Kris is still jittery when he and Adam go up to their room. Kris flops out on his bed, fingers drumming on the sheets. He wishes that the pool was open this late but it's a show night. The window's open and the salty smell of the sea comes in with the evening breeze. Kris thinks he would be okay if he could just go swimming. Kris stretches back on the bed, arching his back._ _

__"Still riding that high?" Adam sits down on the bed. Kris has gotten used to Adam casually invading his space since that night in the pool but having Adam close enough that Kris can feel the vibration of his voice while he's all energized and jittery is strange._ _

__"Kinda," Kris smiles and half rolls so Adam's hip is pressing into his stomach. "I feel..."_ _

__He can't find the words for the feeling. It's like singing in the deeps where the light doesn't go and the pod is scattered but _more_._ _

__"Like someone turned the world up to 11?" Adam says with a smile._ _

__"Yeah," Kris says and smiles up at him. "I feel...I wish I could swim, you know? Just a hour or two."_ _

__"The pool's closed," Adam reminds him regretfully._ _

__"Man," Kris shakes his head and pulls his shirt off. "I can't even take a bath, you know? Too small and I'd just get more frustrated."_ _

__"Uh-huh," Adam says with a bass note that makes Kris' bones tremble under his skin. "You know, if you really wanted to work off your frustrations..."_ _

__He trails off and one of the tentacles along his side uncoils enough to brush against Kris' stomach, ticklish against the trail of hair. Kris wriggles, feels the rush of blood to his dorsals and Adam's eyes trace the arc of the fins. His pupils expand, almost shark like and Kris shivers._ _

__"We don't have to," Adam starts, reluctance with undertones of sincerity. "If you don't want to-"_ _

__"I want," Kris interrupts. He can already feel the thump of his heart and taste the sweet-copper of arousal in the back of his throat. He can't imagine how sex works with human limbs and dull senses but he's aching for contact all the same. Adam's tentacle feels like a cool current in a tropical sea and Kris is boiling._ _

__"Kris," Adam says and Kris isn't sure if that's an answer but Adam's tentacle is sliding past the waistband of jeans. "Be sure, okay? We can do anything you wanna do but-"_ _

__"I'm sure," Kris says and pulls Adam down to kiss him again. He's still not graceful, kissing is one of those awkward things but this one makes Adam's moan vibrate through them both. Kris feels like he's heating up from the inside as more of Adam's tentacles creep under his clothes and spread out against his skin. The tentacles wind their way around his hips, fan out against his chest and Kris' laugh is breathless. "There's not room for you and me in these clothes."_ _

__"Oh?" Adam mouths at his neck and Kris feels the lightest touch of his teeth. His eyes flutter without his permission and Adam's next breath carries his own laughter. "Well, we can fix that."_ _

__He gets Kris out of his clothes as easily Kris would shell a crab and his tentacles wrap around Kris' legs. It feels like Adam is trying to touch him everywhere at once and Kris twists and groans. He can't even tell where Adam is touching him that makes him arch and begin a breathless thread of sound that comes from the depths of his second larynx._ _

__"Fuck," Adam's mouth is against his skin and his tongue feels like coral skin but the sting of it makes Kris moan louder. The blood that's pooling his groin, so much that Kris can smell it - nearly taste it, makes Kris ache and itch and his hips move like he's trying to outswim a shark._ _

__There's too much to take in. Kris is a guppy caught in a whirlpool; grabbing for Adam and panting for air. He can't stop the way his body shivers and arches into Adam's touch. He's aware of heat pooling between his legs that isn't like anything he's ever felt before._ _

__"A-Adam," Kris pants. He's sweating, heat collecting under the slow drag of Adam's tentacles._ _

__"I got you," Adam's breath tastes of spice and heat and Kris turns his head._ _

__He's seen kissing before. It's always looked messy and kinda pointless but Adam's lips are soft and the spice on his breath makes Kris want to lick his mouth open. Kris is clumsy. He feels like he's running a fever, all his sense of balance gone and Adam's heat drawing him in like an unstoppable undertow._ _

__Adam's tentacles wind around his legs and Kris can feel the kiss of the tiny suckers against his skin. It's impossible to find only one thing that Kris can focus on. The tentacles find tender places and Kris can't control the way his body twists under Adam's touch._ _

__Adam's voice is a steady murmur, like the sound of the waves and Kris whines. He wants more contact but he can't handle any more. He doesn't know what he wants or how to get it. Kris just wants._ _

__The tentacles wrap around his thighs, a steady pressure that makes Kris want to push back against but Adam's hand is cupping his jaw and coaxing him back up into another kiss. Kris can feel his rings, the metal warm but still a couple of degrees cooler than Kris' flushed skin._ _

__Adam kisses Kris like the tentacles aren't roaming across Kris' skin, finding the places where he's ticklish sensitive. The room feels too hot, even with Kris' clothes flung away and Kris clings to Adam as his body rolls, searching for the touches that kindle white-hot sparks of pleasure. It's a cresting wave, building with every touch and Kris moans into the kiss._ _

__"Hold on," Adam pants against his lips, fumbling over Kris' shoulder for something. Kris mouths at his collarbone and hums deep in his chest when Adam shivers. The tentacles exploring him flex, almost hard enough to leave bruises. It's not pain that makes Kris nip at Adam's skin but a restless aching need._ _

__The need comes bubbling up in a tangle of song and moan and Adam shivers._ _

__"I got you," he promises and the tube in his hand slips._ _

__Kris arches back, crying out as tentacles wrap around his dick. Every nerve ending in his body seems wired directly to his cock and Kris scrabbles at Adam's shoulders to keep himself from being swept away. Adam kisses him, sloppy and clumsy and fumbles for the tube now under Kris' shoulder._ _

__"Please, please, please," Kris begs. He doesn't even know what he's asking for but Adam kisses him again._ _

__"Gonna make you feel good," he promises and Kris arches again as a tentacle attaches itself just around a nipple. He can feel the rush of Adam's pulse in the tug of the suckers against his skin, a steady contract-release and Kris bucks up against Adam._ _

__"Easy," Adam soothes and one of the tentacles brushing against Kris' balls slides down and back to press against his hole. Kris flinches, hips jerking up and Adam croons against his neck. "Going to make you feel good. Just relax, Kris, feel it..."_ _

__Kris breathes out and the tip presses into him. It feels so much bigger than he expects and Kris clamps down instinctively. Adam kisses him again and the tentacle traces circles around Kris' hole until Kris is pliant and open._ _

__There's a 'snick' and Kris' eyes snap open at the feel of wet, cold gel against his hip. The tube is leaking down Adam's arm and the chill of the gel spreads along the tentacles pumping Kris's cock. The change in temperature makes Kris achingly aware of how hard he is and how much he wanted._ _

__The slick gel warms as Adam works first one tentacle then another and another into his ass. Kris loses track of everything that isn't the steady twist and push of tentacles moving inside him and the relentless grip of tentacles around his dick. Kris can feel the pressure building inside him and he's boiling in his own skin._ _

__Adam's talking in a husky whisper that makes Kris's whole body vibrate, whispering praise and instructions and Kris can feel Adam's cock against his belly and Adam moans every time Kris moves. Hearing Adam faltering on the edge of control is heady and makes Kris feel indescribable powerful._ _

__"Kris," Adam pants against his neck. "Baby, I need-"_ _

__Hi breath catches in his throat as Kris rubs up against his dick._ _

__"I gotta fuck you," Adam says, voice rasping and destroyed with lust._ _

__"Yes," Kris bites at Adam's mouth, fingers tight in his hair. He doesn't care. He'd let Adam do anything to him right now._ _

__"Oh, oh, Kris," Adam kisses him breathless. "Relax for me, okay."_ _

__"Relax?" Kris' voice cracks on a laugh. He's wound so tight that he feels like he's coming apart at the seams._ _

__"It's going to hurt a little," Adam warns him between kisses._ _

__"Don't care," Kris pants. "Please, Adam, please."_ _

__"Fuck," Adam cups his face and pulls him into a deeper kiss. Kris kisses him back even as the first tentacle slips out. Kris can feel the difference as Adam's tentacles slip out and Adam's cock presses in._ _

__It does hurt in those first few seconds when Kris knows that it won't - can't - fit. Adam presses deeper and deeper and the pain becomes discomfort as the tentacles work his cock. The feeling of being full makes the muscles up along his spine clench and Kris gasps as Adam's cock rubs over something that makes his whole nervous system spark._ _

__"So fucking beautiful," Adam says in a purr that makes Kris' toes curl and he's rocking into Kris faster and deeper; forcing the air out of his lungs in a long drawn out moan. Adam is saying something but Kris can't hear the words. He can hear the tone and the throaty rasp of Adam's breath in his chest._ _

__The pain dissolves into a rush of pleasure that sweeps away all rational thought and Kris feels his vocal chords vibrating. His whole body locks, muscles pulsing as he rode out the crest of the wave and Kris loses all control. Adam's cry of release wrings another convulsion of pleasure out of Kris' over-sensitized body._ _

__Adam lets go and Kris flops into the bed like a beached jellyfish. He can feel the aftershocks running through him like a receding tide and his eyes slide closed. Kris turns his head blindly into Adam's slippery touch. Adam is talking, a low murmur of sound that mostly means 'safe' and good things._ _

__Kris doesn't even notice when pleasant drowsiness slips into real sleep but he doesn't dream._ _

__The next morning, Kris' phone makes a sound like a rejected whale and the arms around Kris tighten as Adam flinches in time with him. The phone doesn't take the hint and Kris has to grope across the dresser for it, Adam grumbling under him and ow! Kris isn't ready for the deep ache that goes up his spine as he shifts. The air in his lungs goes rushing out in a whimper._ _

__"Kris?" Adam's voice, sleep-ruffled and gruff, makes him shiver again and jeez, Kris sucks in a breath as the movement locks his back. "Kris?"_ _

__"Yeah?" Kris shifts and can feel the muscles protesting as he tries to find some way to move that doesn't involve moving his ass._ _

__"Y'okay?" Adam asks muzzily._ _

__"...no?" Kris admits as his self-preservation beats out his pride. "I'm a little sore."_ _

__Adam blinks awake, looking down at him with concern. His hands feel awesomely warm as they settle against his back and Kris flinches just a little as tentacles press down against his thighs. Adam's touch gentles immediately._ _

__"How sore?" Adam asks, hands settling on Kris' hip as he shifts. The covers are still warm from them as they resettle against his skin and Kris feels the dull warmth under the pain. He wants Adam again, wants the slither of tentacles against too slick skin, wants to feel Adam pressing in again._ _

__"Not that sore," Kris says, "as long as I don't move?"_ _

__"Poor baby," Adam breathes against his skin, thumbs pressing against the dip of Kris' spine. Adam rubs small circles, working out the lingering tension and the ache is still there but Adam's hands are warm and Kris pillows his head on his arms. "I'm just going to check..."_ _

__Kris flinches a little as Adam's tentacles press his legs apart. The pressure is a little stronger than Kris expects, a harnessed power in the tentacles that might be enough to overpower him. It's not a feeling Kris is used to and he tenses. Adam's tentacles stop pushing immediately and his hand settles just above Kris' ass._ _

__Kris relaxes a little and feels the phantom of last night in the touch as Adam gently explores where Kris is raw and the ache is centered._ _

__"You're a little swollen," Adam breathes against his shoulder. There's a wince in his voice. "Nothing serious but you'll need a few cushions for a day or two."_ _

__The apologetic note in his voice is out of character and Kris tips his head enough that he can peer back at Adam. Adam's tentacles are spread out, winding over Kris' back and upper thighs. He's keeping their weight off Kris, a barely-there cage of woven glitter and soft tissue._ _

__"Worth it," Kris says easily. It's true. Even with the ache, his whole body feels loose and he's clear-headed._ _

__"Yeah?"_ _

__"Yeah," Kris gets his elbows under him and winces again. "But I think I'm done with the after-effects."_ _

__Adam raises his eyebrows and he's got very dramatic eyebrows, Kris thinks and oh, that's a warning sign right there. Kris needs to get into the water, needs to shed this skin for his scales or he'll be worse than fucked (in the not good way) in the practices._ _

__"Want to go for a swim?" Kris offers. "We have an hour, hour and a half."_ _

__"Will ...changing-" Adam waves his hands. "Is it a good idea?"_ _

__"It's a great idea," Kris shifts gingerly. "I just need you to shut up about how I should be feeling and help me down the stairs."_ _

__Adam has to half-carry him, Kris clinging gamely onto Adam's shoulders while they both tried to preserve their modesty with the robes from the bathroom. Going down the stairs was exactly as much fun as Kris through it was going to be and he's panting for air by the time they make it to the pool. Adam's eyes are all squinty despite the fact that Kris has told him that he'll be fine._ _

__Clearly the only thing Kris can do is tip them both into the water. The splash drowns out Adam's indignant yelp and Kris slips down through his flailing tentacles as his gills open. The reorientation of internal muscles takes care of the pain and Kris chases Adam around the pool and is chased in turn for the next three quarters of an hour until they're both giggling too hard to swim._ _

__Also, Adam has figured out how to limpet onto Kris and as soon as he gets more than two tentacles attached, he stops swimming and does his best anchor impression. Kris is strong enough -just- to keep them both afloat but it's not easy. It is a whole lot of fun, just fooling around in the water with Adam._ _

__They probably could have spent all day in the water together. Kris wouldn't have been upset at all but he never gets to find out. There are production staff coming down the stairs in a clatter. Kris tugs Adam over to the bank and lets him handle the semi-hysterical PAs who are convinced they're going to be fired. Adam's tentacles let him be modest long enough to grab their robes._ _

__"I promise," Adam tells one of the PAs, "all we're doing is splashing around."_ _

__"But what if you have a heart-attack?"_ _

__"I'd have had it already?" Adam rolls his eyes at Kris who props his elbows on the side of the pool and looks up._ _

__"But-but you're supposed to be meeting your families at nine," the PA wails._ _

__"We've got..." Adam looks over her shoulder, "fifteen minutes! That's plenty of time! You just need to give Kris a little privacy to get changed-"_ _

__"He doesn't have clothes down here!?"_ _

__"No," Adam says with admirable patience. "But he's also not wearing clothes right now and while that's fine for now, he's going to need pants when he changes back. I need you to get his pants for him, okay?"_ _

__"Okay," the PA breathes deep and nods. "I can do that. I can totally do that."_ _

__Kris watches her go striding off and Adam waits until she's vanished up the stairs before he turns to glare down at Kris._ _

__"Oh my God, Kristopher! I hate you so much right now!"_ _

__"Why do you hate me?" Kris backs off a little and pushes himself up and out of the water._ _

__"Making me do the walk of shame, hello?"_ _

__"Hello," Kris says a little puzzled. "What's the walk of shame?"_ _

__Adam throws a robe at him as Kris' tail splits and Kris doesn't really understand most of what he says but it seems to boil down to 'shame' meaning 'naked' again. Walking folk get awfully upset about such little things. Adam gets seriously worked up when Kris points out that he could hide his dick behind the tentacles. Apparently that's not helpful and Adam threatens to push him back into the pool. They tug at the robe, giggling and pushing at each other like juvenile dolphins. Kris gets himself covered before the PA comes back to ask what clothes they want and Adam skillfully gets them both upstairs and away from her._ _

__Kris manages to wait until the door is closed before he doubles over laughing. They manage to shower and get dressed with the minimum of the giggling though Adam had to redo his lip gloss twice because he was laughing too hard._ _

__Downstairs, they were the last to arrive and everyone else was already at the 'saying goodbye' stage of the visit. Kris hears his momma's low hum of pride from the top of the steps and tries to sing back. His voice comes out too high and it cracks embarrassingly but he's immediately answered by a choral hum._ _

__Adam catches his hand and squeezes it. They hurry down the stairs together and Kris sees his momma with Bravo towering up behind her and Katy looking demure in a pink pastel dress beside her. He can't see his dad but he can hear him talking to somebody. Most importantly, Kris can hear the pod's song thrumming through the air and a tight knot of nerves he hadn't even noticed relaxes._ _

__His momma hugs him so hard that Kris can feel his gills compress and sings a soft wordless song of pride in his ear. Kris gets red and flustered and flounders a little but he does manage to brace himself for Bravo's heavy arm crashing down on his shoulders. They sing to him of pride and confidence and assurance. Kris is still part of the pod, they're so proud of him and he's done so well._ _

__Kris' smile hurts his cheeks, it's so wide and he hugs all three of them as best he can. He can hear Adam talking, his voice resonating even through the clamor of Kris' folks. Adam sounds happy, excited and Kris turns to see him hugging a woman who must be his mom. There's a younger guy who doesn't look like Adam until he tilts his head and smiles._ _

__"So, hi," the younger guy says, sticking his hand out at Kris. "Since Adam can't get his head out of his ass long enough to do the introductions, I'm Neil."_ _

__"Kris Allen," and Kris lets the lower notes play out, adding the inflection that identifies his pod._ _

__"Yeah," Neil blinks kinda slow at him. His eyes are wide and his pupils are huge. He sounds like he's just woken up. "Oh. Oh, wow."_ _

__"You okay, son?" Kris' mom asks._ _

__"Yeah, just..." Neil waves his hands around vaguely. "I kinda had an idea from the show but wow, you really are sirens."_ _

__"We prefer ' _icythus_ '," Bravo says with a grin._ _

__" _Neil_!" Adam hisses, smacking him in the shoulder. "Oh my God! This is why I wanted them to give you back!"_ _

__Adam's mom laughs along with Kris' mom and Bravo and Katy are cackling too._ _

__"I'm so sorry," Adam says graciously, elbowing Neil again. "My brother sadly missed the genes for tact, right along with the genes for good looks and talent."_ _

__"Only 'cause you bogarted the tentacle genes," Neil elbows him back and they scuffle a little._ _

__"I apologize," Adam's mom says, raising her voice over Adam's "Not the hair!" and Neil's "Not the hat!"_ _

__"I have two boys myself," Kris' mom says easily. "They're only rarely this mature. Kim Allen, by the way, since Kris hasn't gotten around to the introductions either."_ _

__"Leila Lambert," Adam's mom says and they shake hands. Adam's mom doesn't freak out at the slight scaliness of Kris' mom's skin and they start chatting to each other. Kris watches this budding friendship with foreboding._ _

__"I think your momma likes her," Bravo says in his ear and Kris elbows him. "Watch the boobs!"_ _

__"I told you that you should have worn a bra," Katy says tartly and they're bickering in no time. Long experience tells Kris that the smartest thing he can do is take one smart step to the side. Arguments on underwear are for folks already happily harmonized with their chosen. Kris, thankfully, hasn't tried to harmonize with either Bravo or Katy in years. He goes over to watch Adam catching his brother in a headlock and mussing up his hair._ _

__"Ha," Adam says when he lets Neil go at last. "Still the boss of you!"_ _

__"Dick," Neil says but he doesn't sound too worked up and the punch he lands on Adam's arm isn't even strong enough to crease the material._ _

__They go their separate ways after that - Adam's family is taking him out for sushi and Kris has to go down to the beach to see the rest of the pod who have come up to cheer him on. Kris' mom gives Adam's mom her phone number and tells her that they should meet up. Kris and Adam exchange worried looks and cling a little when they hug goodbye._ _

__"That's the boy you were singing to?" Kris' mom says when Adam's family have left._ _

__"I wouldn't say singing _to_ -" Kris hedges but he's blushing so hard that his patterning must be visible. Bravo and Katy smirk at him and Kris glares. His mom smiles at him and Kris ducks his head. "Can we talk about something else?"_ _

__"Of course we can, baby," his mom says and threads their arms together._ _

__The beach has a sectioned off area where the rest of the pod are waiting. There was a problem with the police about nudity, Bravo says with a laugh. Katy blames the 'See to Sea' guys for not bringing enough clothes. Apparently everyone's there and they're all happy to see Kris._ _

__Kris gets passed around all two hundred odd people and gets pulled into conversations about walking folk and the television signals and a hundred other things that people want to talk at him about._ _

__Mostly, though, they want to talk about Adam. Kris' great-great-great-grandaunt tells him that he's lucky that Adam's an octoid so they won't have to rent a boat for Thanksgiving. Cale and Andrew want to talk about human sex and don't believe him when he claims ignorance. It's a whole lot of talking and support and people asking about Disneyland. Kris has to explain that while Disneyland is a family vacation spot that doesn't mean it's where you go to make a family._ _

__There's also a lot more advice about sex than Kris ever wanted to get. When Kris' dad pulls him aside to talk about the Pacific-West pod, Kris goes gratefully._ _

__"They're not happy," his dad says dryly. "They were very unhappy after your performance last night."_ _

__"I thought so," Kris admits._ _

__"They've been getting under your momma's scales," his dad says. "She's getting very upset with them."_ _

__"Sooo, keep doing what I'm doing?" Kris says._ _

__"I'm glad we had this talk," his dad says with a smile. "They are talking a lot but there aren't enough of them to contest the territory so talk is all they can do."_ _

__"That might still be a problem," Kris says. "The show is really afraid of legal things. They keep talking to us about being 'controversial' and they sounded like we shouldn't be doing anything that might sound bad."_ _

__"You leave that to us," his dad says. "You just focus on the competition."_ _

__Kris gets to eat some chicken while his mom tells his dad all about Adam and his family and the pod's song takes up notes that sound of Adam's voice. Kris mostly wants to melt into the sand as the sun gets hotter and more of the pod slip back into the sea where it's cooler._ _

__It's a relief to finally get back to the mansion. Everyone is talking about their families and Kris can totally share his own stories now since everyone knows he's an _icythus_. Danny doesn't want to talk to Kris at all but he keeps hovering on the edge of Kris' conversations while Matt asks Kris a whole bunch of questions. _ _

__Honestly, Kris was expecting Danny to be uncomfortable but he thought Danny would just avoid him. He wasn't expecting Danny to hover around and get involved in the conversation just to pointedly stop to choose his words. It gets really uncomfortable and Danny gradually chases everyone else away until it's just him and Kris kinda looking at each other and then away while the silence between them strangles any attempt at a conversation._ _

__"So my mom thinks your mom is awesome," Adam announces, leaning on Kris' shoulder. "I think they may take over the world."_ _

__"Probably," Kris says as Danny finds somewhere else to be. "But they will make it awesome if they do?"_ _

__"You have a point," Adam slides into the chair beside him. "Did you have fun?"_ _

__"Yeah," Kris smiles. "Ready to get started on next week though."_ _

__Allison comes over and they talk about the next show and who they think will be going home. Adam is transparently hoping it'll be Danny which Kris can't actually blame him for. Allison isn't sure who she wants to go home but she's eager to talk about his pod. The idea of such a big family seems to blowing her mind and she's amazed that Kris still has a great-great-great-grand aunt._ _

__"She's tough," Kris says proudly because Aunt Jean is awesome. "She really likes your hair. Apparently you're the coolest girl on television."_ _

__"I am awesome," Allison says complacently, preening a little and Adam laughs. They share a pizza and talk about their families for the rest of the night. They have to be back into the studio for the next day because the results are back. It means that they have to sit and listen to Ryan drag out the whole thing like the results haven't been obvious to everyone with a smart-phone._ _

__Not that Kris has a phone that does that but Anna does and Anna has become fast friends with Adam's friend Brad. Brad has a knack for public relations, according to Adam, and he's been tracking numbers. According to Brad, Adam and Kris are safe. It doesn't help when he's actually sitting under the lights, waiting for Ryan to make it official. Kris can feel the hydrating gel evaporating and all the hair on his neck stands up._ _

__It's going to be him, Adam, Allison and Danny going forward into the final four. Kris says goodbye to Matt and Anoop and their final songs are some of the best singing that they've done in the competition. Kris can feel the hum of their emotion flowing through him and it takes three tentacles wound around his arm, looping up under the loose shirt, to keep him from actually singing along._ _

__The next challenge is going to be a duet and Kris feels every bit as jittery as he had during the farewell songs. Adam won the challenge and was going to pick a partner, leaving the other two to sing together. Kris doesn't want to assume Adam will choose him but he can't imagine Adam choosing Danny which kinda sucks because Kris really doesn't want to sing with Danny. He can't flatten out his voice and there's a nasal whine in Danny's voice that puts Kris' teeth on edge._ _

__Adam chooses Allison._ _

__Kris keeps a smile on his face through the delighted squealing and lets Danny pat him on the shoulder. He doesn't say anything to Adam, doesn't stay around to listen to Allison being gleeful about her and Adam's good luck. He just ducks quietly out to where Sylvie and Anna are waiting._ _

__"I need to see my folks," Kris says simply._ _

__"Okay," Sylvie nods. "Okay, we can do that."_ _

__Kris gets hustled through the backstage area with Anna behind him and Sylvie cutting through the crowds like a ship's prow. He probably shouldn't share that analogy with her, Kris thinks._ _

__"Okay," Sylvie says, checking her phone. "Apparently your folks are out a ways into the Bay but your uncle Joshua says that they've left Zorro to guide you out."_ _

__"And I really hate to be the one to have to do this," Anna says as she starts the car and catches Kris' eye in the rearview mirror, "but stop taking your clothes off, baby."_ _

__"I'm just taking off my shirt," Kris objects. "Plenty of people in LA don't wear shirts."_ _

__"Plenty of people in LA aren't the first real-life, hand-to-god Siren to come out of the sea," Anna points out. "Sweetie, naked pictures are not going to help."_ _

__"I'm technically naked all the time," Kris grumbles. "So what if they get a picture?"_ _

__"It wouldn't help," Sylvie tries to explain. Kris tries to give a damn. Apparently it will be a big deal if Kris is photographed without his pants on and the production company might not want to keep him. Kris' contract says something about that and he could be in trouble. Kris thinks about it for the five minutes it takes to pull up at the pier._ _

__"Fuck it," Kris says and wads his shirts up to throw in the backseat. He jogs along the pier with Sylvie and Anna scrambling out of the car. He unfastens his belt as he heads for the end of the pier. He can hear Zorro's mournful song and his gills unstick as he breathes in to answer her. Kris kicks off his pants, jeans and all, as he dives off the end, already shifting in the air._ _

__Kris plunges headlong into the water, tail already driving him deeper into the water. Zorro is about a hundred feet out from the pier and Kris sings the little trill that he's trained her to recognize and she comes hurtling through the water._ _

__There are times, Kris thinks, that Zorro forgets she isn't the tiny little calf that he'd found lost in a storm. She's nearly two tonnes now, not the biggest that a domesticated orca can grow to but getting there. She nearly flips him out of the water in her rush to bump against him and fill the water around him with bubbles._ _

__Zorro keeps play-charging him, bumping against him as Kris tries to swim out to sea. She's practically giddy, splashing around and singing about the long journey and how cold the waters were and how the pods of wild orcas had made hunting so hard. She had caught a shark all by herself and is transparently proud. Kris makes a point of praising her as they swim in the shallows._ _

__Zorro is eager to tell him about his pod as Kris swims around her, scratching the itchy places just above her dorsal fin and letting her tow him out to the deep water where the song of the pod filled the water. Having Zorro fill the whole Bay with how much she missed him helps ease the heavy lump in his chest._ _

__The others come rising up from the deep; Cale's deep-blue tail just one more shadow and Bravo's shining gold fins look like reflected sunlight. Kris sings out a greeting and is swarmed by his family's welcome. Zorro keeps nudging away any attempt to get too close and blowing bubbles at him._ _

__"Kris?" His dad comes swimming up and Kris dives to meet him. "Is everything okay?"_ _

__"No," Kris admits miserably._ _

__"Tell us," his mom says, reaching out to smooth his fins back._ _

__"Adam picked Allison to sing with," Kris says in a rush and the song that carries the words is full of all the things that don't have words; the hollow feeling, the sting of rejection and the whole mess of feelings that Kris has tried really hard not to think about. "He could have chosen me and he didn't."_ _

__His mom and dad wrap him up in a spiral of hugs, Zorro dipping to bump her nose against his hip while she whistles threats about the ones making him feel like this. It doesn't really help but it makes him feel a little better._ _

__"I just don't get it," Kris admits at last, rubbing just above Zorro's eyes. "I thought he liked me."_ _

__"I think he does," Kris' mom says as she strokes his dorsals flat._ _

__"It's probably just a tactical move," his dad says. "You said that Allison likes the same music as he does."_ _

__"I guess," Kris sulks. "He still stuck me with Danny though."_ _

__"Well," Kris' mom pokes his tail. "If he's going to think tactically, so should you!"_ _

__"Kim, honey," his dad starts and Kris' mom fans her fins out._ _

__"You know darn well you can sing the walls down," she says. "You've been really good, sweetie, but this is the final stage of the competition. Time to be ruthless!"_ _

__"Um," Kris looks at his dad who is keeping Kris between him and Kris' mom as she circles._ _

__"Your mother just thinks you might want to uh, use your full potential," Kris' dad says out loud then lowers his voice so only Kris can hear. "She's been getting very...invested in your success. I think the West-Pacific pod is getting to her."_ _

__"You can out-sing every sing one of them!" Kris' mom says. "You just need to stop being so shy about it! God gave you a voice for a reason, Kristopher!"_ _

__"This isn't about how you feel about him," Daniel agrees. "This is about winning."_ _

__Kris hasn't heard his family this intense without blood in the water. The pod's collective song has shifted to a hunting tempo and Kris is in the middle of a circling stack of his friends and family. He drapes an arm over Zorro's back and lets her crooning steady him. The pod stir up a shoal of small silvery fish and everyone goes darting after them, the air filling with the whistles and hums of the hunt._ _

__He can't stay out too late; there's a curfew at the mansion and Daniel and Bravo escort him back to the pier where Sylvie and Anna are waiting. Zorro nearly jumps onto the pier after him, squeaking loudly in distress as Anna bundles Kris up in a towel and Sylvie steadies him. The constant back and forth is making his legs ache and Kris knows he won't be able to keep this up for much longer. The muscles are aching and tearing._ _

__"He needs to spend a day or two on his legs," Bravo tells Sylvie, "and he'll feel better."_ _

__"Can do," Sylvie says. She sounds breezy and confident but Kris can hear her heart-rate jump as Bravo slips back into the water. He towels his hair dry and hears Anna's awed whisper even though he doesn't think she meant him to._ _

__"That is never going to stop being cool."_ _

__"I know, right?"_ _

__They drive him back to the mansion and Kris asks them to make sure that one of the practice studios with the humidity controls are booked for him and Danny the next day. Sylvie promises to handle it, phone already out and Kris gets out at the mansion gates._ _

__Adam is in bed when Kris makes it up to their rooms, saying hi in a voice that suggests he's nearly half-asleep._ _

__"Go back to sleep," Kris says softly. "Big day tomorrow."_ _

__The next morning, Kris walks into the studio and sees Danny all but jump out of his skin when the door squeaks. Danny is peering at Kris like he's safe on the other side of his glasses._ _

__"Kris!" Danny says nervously. "Come in, man. Come in. We have a lot to get done."_ _

__"Yeah," Kris sits on a stool and lets Danny stammer through his half-formed plans without really paying attention. The studios are the quietest places but Kris can still hear Adam's voice. He and Allison must have decided on a song because he's singing. Kris doesn't recognize the song but the ugly feeling in his stomach grows spines and he turns back to Danny just in time for the wrap-up._ _

__"-do you think?" Danny says._ _

__"Fine," Kris says._ _

__"You can take some time to think about it," Danny sounds a little wary. "I mean, I am totally open to your suggestions."_ _

__"Whatever you pick is fine," Kris says. He can hear all sorts of things in Danny's voice like this, where the studio blocks out most of the ambient noise, that he couldn't hear before. There's fear, a twisted fascination echoed by the way Danny's heart skips a beat when Kris looks at him and there's a sullen, greedy note of pride. Danny doesn't really hate Kris. He doesn't like him much either and right now, Kris doesn't care._ _

__"I'll work around you," Kris says. "I'm used to singing with other people so you just pick the song and get used to it and I'll add to it."_ _

__"That doesn't seem....fair."_ _

__"I have no idea how we'll mix," Kris admits frankly, "but I don't wanna go home and I'm guessing you don't either."_ _

__"No," Danny says immediately._ _

__"Walking folk don't sing with us often," Kris says truthfully. He doesn't mention why but he lets Danny puff himself up a little at the thought of it. "I haven't listened to you just singing outside of performances but I'm betting it's easier for me to fit around you, musically speaking, than it is for you to fit around me."_ _

__Danny likes that. Kris can see it in the way his smile spreads across his face and his shoulders pull back. He seems more energized as he breaks out the music for his chosen song and starts talking. The song is 'Renegade' and Kris thinks it's an odd choice. Danny doesn't strike him as any kind of a renegade. He seems like a normal, average guy._ _

__It takes two days of working with Danny for Kris to really realize what's going on here. Danny isn't a renegade but he wants to be. Well, Kris amends privately as he watches Danny talk to their handlers, Danny wants to be treated like a renegade. Danny thinks of himself as the hero of the show, the guy who everyone wants to be._ _

__That's why he doesn't like Adam because Adam is that guy without seeming to work at it at all. Kris can sympathize and he adds that to his inflection as Danny settles on how he wants to sing and Kris starts to mold his part around Danny's verses. Danny really isn't a bad guy; he just does bad things. It's not the most typical take on a renegade but it works and Kris builds up the layers of meaning in a complex harmonization._ _

__He has to practice with the recordings Danny makes at first. It takes a whole day before Danny stops losing the thread of the song when Kris joins in. Kris has to bring his guitar into it just to give Danny something else to think about._ _

__The producers who are working with them tell them that the song sounds good. Kris has to trust them. Danny's voice grates on him and the nasal whine of his higher notes makes Kris want to strangle him sometimes but Kris grits his teeth and sings along with him. He's singing with both larynxes and the weight of the song has caused feedback issues._ _

__Singing with Danny takes up so much of Kris' time that he doesn't get to the pool for the whole three days. It also means that he doesn't see Adam much. A mean, spiteful part of him is glad but mostly Kris misses him. Going back to their room to see the signs of Adam having passed through and leaving the scent of salt water and his make-up makes Kris feel even more alone._ _

__Danny makes a few clumsy attempts to be friends but really, Kris doesn't think they're ever going to be friends. Outside of music, he and Danny just don't have enough in common to be more than passing acquaintances. Still, Kris manages to have a couple of decent conversations and Danny even listens when Kris gently corrects a few of his stupider beliefs about Kris' people. He doesn't get Danny to apologize or anything but it's progress._ _

__They go on second. Danny sings, Adam sings, then Adam and Allison sing, then Allison, then Kris and then he and Danny. Danny's song is Aerosmith and Kris doesn't like it particularly but the crowd seems into it. There's an immediate difference when Adam comes out on stage and starts to sing, the crowd sounds louder and more responsive. Kris is just as guilty as everyone else, listening from the wings with his eyes half-closed._ _

__The duet between Adam and Allison is fun and cheeky and sounds like both of them blended together. It's a good song and Kris thinks they've chosen well. The judges agree and Simon even tells Allison that she was lucky to have Adam pick her when her solo song doesn't go down so well._ _

__"If you make it through," he tells her in that sneering voice that makes Kris' fins lift clear of his skin, "you'll owe it to Adam."_ _

__Kris' anger bleeds into his own song which is fine - he's singing 'Smooth Criminal' and the anger gives his harmonies a threatening undertone that makes the crowd shiver in delighted fear. The song's snappy rhythm lends itself to anger and the steadily rising tempo makes Kris think of closing in for the kill after a fast, brutal hunt. Walking folk don't live so close to the beast, Danny's taught him that, and adding the savage tone makes his song resonate._ _

__The audience claps and cheers when the last note cuts off and Kris bows and smiles. Paula and Randy are falling over themselves to say nice things but Simon is watching him out of narrowed eyes. Kris turns to him at last and Simon barely bothers to waste more than a few words._ _

__"I'm dying to hear what you and Danny come up with," he says and smirks as the camera cuts away._ _

__Kris ducks off stage where Danny is waiting and hands him his guitar._ _

__"You don't have time for a bathroom break!" Danny hisses. "There's only a few minutes."_ _

__"I know," Kris says more calmly than he feels, "but I don't wanna fry under the lights either."_ _

__He's already pulling up his shirt and Danny sputters._ _

__"Man," Kris says warningly. "I do not have time for this-"_ _

__"Here," Adam's voice makes Kris start and Danny backs up, clutching Kris' guitar, "let me help."_ _

__"I need-" Kris starts but Adam already has the gel in his hand. The shock of it, cold and wet, makes Kris yelp._ _

__"Sorry, sorry!" Adam doesn't stop but his touch gentles._ _

__"It's okay," Kris says. "It's just...cold."_ _

__"Sorry, baby," Adam says and Kris hears the indignant snort as Danny breathes in sharply through his nose. "Hang on. I got you."_ _

__They go back out, Kris smoothing his shirt as the lights come up and the crowd cheers. Danny's got the mike and Kris shrugs his guitar strap back into place. Danny starts too fast but manages to slow himself down as Kris strums along. Kris actually starts singing about a minute before he opens his mouth, laying the lower notes of the harmony. He tries to put everything he knows about Danny's longing to be a renegade into the song to make it true. It's not perfect, Danny warbles in a few places and he's singing too loud and too close for Kris to be comfortable._ _

__Still, the awed hush as they finish is a serious boost to his ego and the roar of applause that follows is like a spring tide. Danny's beaming and he monopolizes Ryan's microphone which suits Kris fine. It lets him relax his lower larynx so he sounds like one of the walking folk when Ryan tells him he did really well._ _

__"That was some song," Randy says, shaking his head. "Kris, you've got serious talent."_ _

__"I think Danny did very well," Paula nods loosely a few times. "Really, really good. You should be proud of yourself."_ _

__"You should count yourself lucky," Simon says and doesn't smile. "That song was a very odd choice. Particularly from you, Danny. You're about as far from a renegade as it's possible to get. You could have earnt your place on the runner's up list if you hadn't had Kris to carry you. You were very lucky."_ _

__Danny nods soberly but Kris can hear him breathing a little faster, more through his nose. Danny's smile is tight when the camera swings to him._ _

__"Kris," Simon draws his name out as he sits back. " All I have to say to you is that if you'd been singing like this since the first week, you'd have been winning far more often."_ _

__"Thanks," Kris says with a smile, "I think?"_ _

__Ryan and the crowd laugh and even Simon smirks. They get herded off stage long enough for Kris to stow his guitar before they have to go back out and wait for the results. Danny is still simmering about Simon's dig, Allison is so nervous that she's vibrating like a guitar string and Adam has taken the other side of the sofa Kris is on. He's barely sat down before the first tentacle is winding up around Kris' belt-loop and up so the very tip of it rests against Kris' skin._ _

__Kris doesn't say anything and more tentacles start to wind around him as he sits and just breathes. It's blessedly cool here, humidifiers going full blast and Kris licks his lips, tasting the dry skin._ _

__"Here," Adam holds out a half-full water bottle._ _

__"Thanks," Kris says. He doesn't get the significance of the half-full until he tastes Adam's lip-gloss on the lip of the bottle. It's probably nothing but the part of Kris that is still all irrational hope wants it to be significant. He can't blame Adam for not knowing what Kris' folks believe but he's still hurt._ _

__"I'm thinking," Adam says, voice pitched for Kris' ears, "that after this? There is going to be so much swimming that I'll need to dye my roots again."_ _

__"Sounds like a plan," Kris says. The tentacles tighten around him. "Mind some company?"_ _

__Adam's smile is brilliant and he leans a little into Kris. Adam's warmth doesn't make Kris want to lean back. It's like the tropical seas; warm but safe. Kris thinks that tropical seas are beautiful too and feels the blush stain his cheeks. He takes another drink from the bottle and the PAs are calling them back out to hear the results._ _

__Allison's eliminated._ _

__Even Simon tells her that she's got the talent and the personality and the charm to make it; she just isn't ready. Allison nods and smiles through the tears that glitter in her eyes. Her final song makes Kris ache and he and Adam are waiting backstage to hug her. Allison's crying continuously even as she smiles and Kris' heart aches for her. She's being so much braver than Kris thinks he would be in her place._ _

__She stays as long as she can but the production staff pack her bags for her and her mom is standing in the hallway, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. Allison hugs Kris tight enough to compress his gills when Kris tells her that she's gonna have to come meet Zorro and his folks once the competition's over._ _

__"I told Adam that I was rooting for him," Allison confides in his ear, "but you were my car buddy so I'm hoping you win it. You totally have to take me to Disneyland if you win though."_ _

__"I will," Kris promises. He doesn't cry exactly but his eyes are leaking at the corners anyway. He hugs her tightly and she's gone._ _

__Adam wraps himself around Kris from behind, tentacles spreading out and worming under Kris' clothes. It could be a come-on but Adam's breathing suggests comfort. Kris pats his arm and the accessible parts of the mass of tentacles._ _

__"Want to go for that swim?" Kris offers at last and Adam nods._ _

__The water feels cold at first, but as Kris paces length after length, he warms up. Adam stays limpeted to Kris as he swims. They can't talk as Kris powers through the water but they're singing together all the same. Kris finally surfaces after nearly an hour and Adam frees enough tentacles to attach them to the side of the pool._ _

__"I'm kinda pissed at you," Adam says suddenly. He doesn't sound pissed, more contemplative but Kris tips his head back and blinks apologetically all the same. "I mean, I know you were only doing what you had to but if you hadn't rocked that duet, it would have been Danny going home."_ _

__"It might have been me going home instead," Kris points out and Adam scoffs._ _

__"Don't even, baby. You _rocked_ that last number."_ _

__"Still," Kris shrugs. "We can only do the best we can. It's not really up to us when we're going home."_ _

__"That is such bullshit," Adam says crossly but he's floating in front of Kris with his head tipped back so he can't be too annoyed. "You have everything to do with when you go home. You have to do your best and they won't have the balls to send you home. It's all about selling yourself, Kris. You just have to connect with the public and you're golden."_ _

__"That's so much easier to say than to do," Kris complains, tail swishing a little._ _

__"That's life, baby," Adam says. "It's only easy from the outside."_ _

__Kris blows bubbles at him and gets smacked with a tentacle. He ducks under the water where he's faster and nimbler than Adam. Adam's tentacles give him the longer reach so they're actually pretty evenly matched. They splash around in the pool like guppies and giggle at each other._ _

__Adam gets enough tentacles wrapped around Kris' tail to pull him under and they both sink to the bottom of the pool, hiccupping bubbles and Adam stares at him with oddly intent eyes. His third eyelid is closed, turning the blue of his eyes even brighter in the dim light underwater._ _

__Kris hums softly and Adam's tentacles tighten around him. They just...drift for a while and Adam starts adding his own harmonies to Kris' song. The complexities he adds enrich the whole song. Even Daniel hasn't been able to blend his song so perfectly into Kris' and Daniel's been a limpet on Kris' tail since he could swim without their mom's help._ _

__Kris could have stayed in the water forever but the song is making heat prickle under his skin and Kris can taste the spicy flavor of his own arousal in the water. He sweeps his tail, sending them up through the cooler water outside their private little bubble._ _

__Adam lets Kris pull them up and levers himself out of the pool but he watches Kris with the sort of focus that makes Simon look like a sleepy dolphin. Adam doesn't even look away as Kris' tail splits. Kris is half-hard and sure, Adam's seen it all before but that was before the whole duet thing and Kris isn't sure if this is appropriate._ _

__He's sure Adam isn't going to be disgusted - the slim tentacles winding their way into the hair at the nape of Kris' neck are proof of that. Adam follows him back up to their room. Kris puts their towels in the hamper and pulls on a pair of pants. Adam never lets go of him, even when Kris sits on his bed._ _

__"You know they said we could have our own rooms," Adam says suddenly._ _

__"We could?"_ _

__"Yeah," Adam looks down at where the tentacles are looped around Kris' wrist. "I kinda forgot to mention it."_ _

__"Oh," Kris hesitates. "Do you wanna move?"_ _

__"God, no," Adam says and there's a ripple of glitter across his cheeks. "I mean, if you don't wanna move...I'm kinda used to you now, you know?"_ _

__"Yeah," Kris ducks his head and tries to hide his smile. "I'm used to you too."_ _

__Adam leans into his shoulder and laughs. It's still a little quiet but things seem to be comfortable between them again. Kris is just glad and when Adam starts talking about how totally awesome Allison was, Kris leans back into Adam, letting the tentacles shift to coil up around his arm and across his shoulder._ _

__They wind up falling asleep on the same bed and get woken by a PA banging cheerfully on the door._ _

__"Up and at 'em, guys! We have interviews in forty!"_ _

__Adam makes a suggestion that's muffled by the pillow but doesn't seem anatomically possible to Kris. His tentacles tighten a little and Kris blinks fuzzily at the ceiling. Adam's tentacles feel like they've spread over the night and Kris is cocooned in them. He shivers at the feather-light drag against the soft skin under his fins. He's hard again, most of the way and it's not exactly the easiest thing the world to hide._ _

__Adam's arm and shoulder are draped across his back, pinning Kris to the bed at a seriously awkward angle. Adam's heavier than him and with tentacles everywhere, Kris honestly isn't sure how to get loose. He tries poking at the nearest tentacle. Adam mumbles into his pillow and rolls, squashing Kris further into the mattress._ _

__"Adam!" Kris whines._ _

__"Five more minutes," Adam says, tentacles shifting to grip Kris more securely._ _

__"I will pee on you," Kris warns and the tentacles stop moving._ _

__"Do you actually need to go?" A blue eye peers under Adam's arm._ _

__"Do you actually need thirty minutes to get ready for interview?" Kris asks. "'Cause I'm definitely going to need to pee sooner than that."_ _

__"We have interviews?" Adam yelps and launches himself out of bed. His tentacles seem a little less than willing to co-operate so Kris gets dragged out of bed along with him. They go down with a crash in a tangle of limbs and mutual yelps. Adam's knee lands on Kris' fin and Kris feels at least two tentacles squished under him._ _

__They manage to get separated very carefully and they're both dressed and mostly decent when the PA - Rachel, Kris thinks her name is - comes zooming back to collect them. They're actually being interviewed on camera so they have to drive to the interview. Since there's only three of them left, there's only one car._ _

__Kris is stranded between Adam and Danny. Both of them are smiling and neither of them mean it. Their voices discord with every overly polite word. Kris is drafted to referee and all the easy contentment of waking up tangled with Adam dissolves in the growing tension between the other two._ _

__"So," Kris says after yet another conversation fizzles out with Adam and Danny glaring sourly across the back seat, "How about that weather?"_ _

__By the time they arrive, Kris feels like he's been trapped in a driftnet for an hour; half-suffocated and in need of something he can use for therapeutic biting. Adam's got three tentacles tangled in his shirt and stays close as they get shuffled through make-up and into the green room._ _

__Kris isn't really sure why but Danny reacts to Adam hanging around Kris like Adam's only there to annoy him. It makes the few paltry attempts at conversation really awkward. Adam and Danny weren't even pretending to include each other in the conversation. It made it really awkward for Kris but neither of them bother to pay enough attention to Kris' stilted answers to make any conversation._ _

__Kris gets put in the middle on set too. There is a sofa opposite the interviewer's chair and Danny takes one side of it. Adam eyes the chair off to one side and winds up crowding Kris into the middle of the couch. He's wedged between them both which is hot, uncomfortable, hot, awkward and did Kris mention hot?_ _

__The worst part is that they're both sweating and Kris doesn't remember that he needs to put on the stay-wet gel until the full lights come on and the cameras are being pointed at them. Kris tries really hard not to think about how hot it's getting as the interviewer starts off with the easy questions which bounce back and forth between Danny and Adam._ _

__"So, Kris," she says eventually. "I've got to ask, how are you dealing with the scandal over the photographs?"_ _

__"Photographs?" Kris blinks at her._ _

__"You mean Adam's photographs," Danny sniffs and Adam goes stiff beside him._ _

__"No," the interviewer says brightly. "Although...those pictures with your boyfriend were super cute! You guys looked so sweet."_ _

__"Thank you!" Adam smiles for real, flashing white teeth at her while Danny grumbles low in his throat._ _

__"But," she smiles at Kris, "I gotta admit, your photos are seriously more juicy."_ _

__Kris flicks a puzzled glance at Adam and sees the same bewilderment reflected back. "I'm real sorry," he says, "but what are you talking about?"_ _

__"Oh!" She puts her hand to her lips and giggles. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize you hadn't heard."_ _

__There's a sinking feeling in Kris' stomach as he turns to look at the screen and there's a moment before the picture comes up on the screen where Kris desperately trying to think what they could be talking about._ _

__It's a photo from Kris going to see his family. Of course it is. The photographer's managed to catch Kris about halfway out of his pants. There's nothing really showing but it's kinda...suggestive._ _

__Kris blushes so hard that he can feel his pattern showing his skin and buries his face in his hands. Adam is shaking with laughter on one side of him and Danny is shaking with disbelief on the other side of him._ _

__If it's not the most embarrassing moment in Kris' life, well, he can't think of anything worse right this second. He manages to sort of explain how it happened and even gets a laugh out of the audience by confessing that he keeps shredding pants every time he changes so his momma told him to always make sure he took his pants off._ _

__"I was a little more afraid that my momma'd have my tail than I was of photographers," Kris admits. "I'll know better next time."_ _

__There's more laughter and Kris manages to flail through the rest of interview without making an even bigger fool of himself but finally, finally, _finally_ they are done. Kris shakes the interviewer's hand, aware that his skin is practically shriveling up under the bright lights and practically bolts for the men's room. Adam gets held up so Kris has the bathroom to himself. He's not dried out exactly but he's uncomfortably close to that point._ _

__Kris fills the sink and plunges both hands in. It's not the fastest way to rehydrate but his skin soaks up the water like a sponge and he can feel it spreading up through his arms._ _

__"You too, eh?" Danny says as he comes in the door and makes for the urinals. "I thought they were never gonna finish..."_ _

__He trails off and Kris lifts his head to see Danny staring at him. The patterning under Kris' skin is still just a shade darker and Danny's eye trace the loops and whorls along Kris' cheek and down the side of his neck._ _

__"It was my own fault," Kris says to break the awkward moment. "I forgot to gel up before we went out."_ _

__"Oh," Danny says, sounding a little puzzled. He's been in the green room with Kris a hundred times by now, surely he's seen Kris putting on the stay-wet? "Are you ready for the show on Thursday?"_ _

__It's easy enough to redirect Danny into talking about the song he's planning for the next show and how he really thinks he has a chance, you know? He's not really looking for Kris' opinion, which is fine, no-one's making him listen to it. Kris waits until his patterning has faded back into his skin and makes his excuses._ _

__Adam's talking to some fans who come crowding over, holding out pens and photographs and asking if Kris would mind-? Could they just-? Kris smiles, lets himself be hugged and tries not to blink when the flashes start going off. It takes nearly fifteen minutes before everyone has a autograph and/or photo and he can escape back behind the comforting wall of security._ _

__Back at the mansion, they all go their own separate ways. The show's tomorrow night and there's all the work to do. Kris spends time on the patio, listening to his iPod and waiting for the car to take them out to the studios._ _

__Singing is still fun and Kris really enjoys working with the guys now that everything's on the table. Sandi has some really good ideas and suggestions for how to use both levels of his voice for the best results and it seems like no time at all before his throat is aching and they're breaking for lunch._ _

__Adam comes to find him for lunch and they go for bagels. Adam's all enthused about his song and chattering happily about it. Kris talks about his song and how the producer he's working with is kickass. Adam laughs about the photos and tells Kris that he really appreciated Kris upstaging him on the photograph thing. Kris swats him and they devolve into a slap fight._ _

__"So," Adam says, after they've calmed down. "This is, like, the worst possible time to be having this talk but I still think we should, okay?"_ _

__"Okay," Kris says and waits for Adam to get to the point._ _

__"So I like you," Adam says in a rush._ _

__"Okay, I kinda figured that," Kris says._ _

__"No, not that kind of like," Adam flails. "I like-like you, okay?"_ _

__"I like-like you too?"_ _

__"Kristopher!" Adam snaps and stops and takes a deep breath. The tentacles threading their way through Kris' belt buckle tug sharply at him. "What I'm trying to say is that I'd really like to go on a date with you."_ _

__"Oh, oh!" Kris feels a little stupid. "That kinda like?"_ _

__"Yes, Kris," Adam says with exaggerated patience, "that kind of like. I really like you and I know this isn't the best time to be asking but, when this is over, I'd kinda like to take you out sometime."_ _

__"That's a date, right?" Kris asks._ _

__"Yes, Kristopher," Adam says. "That's me asking you to go out with me on a date."_ _

__"Awesome!" Kris says. "We don't have to go to a movie or anything do we? Moving pictures give me migraines."_ _

__"We don't have to go see a movie if you don't want to," Adam agrees. "We can just spend time together and make out."_ _

__That sounds good and Kris nods. Adam beams at him and they get called back to work. Kris feels giddy and he can't keep the smile from his face as he goes back into the studio. He's not sure what he should be doing. If they were in the deep, he'd be finding Adam a courting gift._ _

__Perhaps he should find something anyway? Adam wasn't just walking folk. What sort of thing would be acceptable? Kris panics a little and winds up having to call Sylvie on the way back to the mansion to freak out at her. Anna winds up hijacking the call so he can describe what he's looking for._ _

__"I got you, babe," Anna says. "This is LA and I have the number for a few of his friends. Awesome presents guaranteed."_ _

__"Thank you," Kris says sincerely and the car pulls in._ _

__Now that there's only three of them, there's no privacy from the cameras. Kris counts twice the number of people behind the cameras as there are in front of it and it means that they're being watched every second. Danny figures out that the more people there are in an area, the more cameras they are and since he doesn't want to talk to Adam, he winds up chasing Kris around the ground floor which makes Adam get territorial._ _

__Kris is exhausted by the time he finally gets up to bed, Adam not more than a step behind him. They fall into bed and Kris is still humming his song in the back of his throat. Adam's a warm weight beside him._ _

__Two days to show and Kris is singing every spare second he has. He can't even grab lunch with Adam because every second of practice time is precious and if he isn't in the studio, Adam is. Kris is drinking a lot of tea with honey and trying not to speak when he doesn't have to. Danny is getting wound up tighter than a harpoon gun and he keeps randomly breaking into two different songs as he waits to make his choice._ _

__Everyone's talking like it's just a fight between Danny and Adam to decide who's going home. Kris gets talked to like he's already through. It's possible that they know something he doesn't but Kris is determined to get to the final. His pod have been relaying messages through Sylvie and promising to be there for the live show. Apparently West-Pacific are so furious that one of them has agreed to come on camera. Cale says they all have barnacles and seaweed hanging off their tails and makes Kris laugh._ _

__"They had to get a speech coach," Cale tells him and Kris can hear the smile in his voice, imagine the wicked curl of his lips as he talks. "They haven't spoken English in four generations. All they can do is whistle and chirrup."_ _

__"And sing," Kris mentions because that's the problem, isn't it?_ _

__"I haven't heard anything good from them," Cale says dismissively. "Seriously, no singers among the ones who came to talk to your folks. They were trying to sing but it was all droning and boring as hell."_ _

__"Then why do they have their tails in a knot about me singing?" Kris grumbled._ _

__"Because singing is private and a God-given gift that should not be squandered on walking folk and their tin ears," Cale parrots in a slow, clipped accent. "You're supposed to be searching for your one true love, not singing in front of thousands of people, Kristopher, like a scandalous little hussy."_ _

__"Actually," Kris says, trying to mimic the same accent, "I believe it's _millions_ of viewers."_ _

__"That's still freaky to think about," Cale says, dropping the accent._ _

__"You're not the one on TV!" Kris says and Cale laughs._ _

__"Thank God for that," he says comfortably. "I'd be back in the waters two days later."_ _

__"Yeah," Kris says and the conversation turns back to normal things._ _

__"Good luck," Cale tells him just before he hangs up and Kris manages a thank you. Cale's words linger in his head and Kris struggles to keep his head underwater for the actual show. It's easy enough to sing; the song's practically etched into his vocal chords by now and the crowd is screaming and cheering._ _

__It's not the same as being in the middle of the pod, with all his kin singing in harmony; the flow of energy is different but every bit as intoxicating. Kris blends his song into the cheering and the pulse of the crowd and gets it echoed back a thousand times over._ _

__Kris comes off-stage shaking with adrenalin and giddy with the rush of it. He gets to hug Adam before Adam's music is cued up and he goes on. Kris stays just outside the green room to listen. Adam's voice makes Kris' knees weak and lights that fire under his skin again. He can't even think about what it would feel like to feel that vibration against his skin while Adam-_ _

__"Hey, Kris!" Danny's voice jars him out of his half-formed fantasy before he can embarrass himself._ _

__"Hey Danny," Kris says, clearing his throat when the words come out husky. "What's up?"_ _

__"Just wanted to make sure we were okay, you know?" Danny waggles his hands between them. "I mean, I said some dumb things about sirens and shit and I don't want you thinking I'm a jerk or anything."_ _

__"I don't think you're a jerk for saying that," Kris says. "My folk don't come out of the water much."_ _

__"Well," Danny hesitates. "I'm glad and all..."_ _

__"But?" Kris prompts._ _

__"But I just wanna be sure you don't think I'm like...racist," Danny says and Kris sighs. Danny's put him in mind of some of his cousins who can't ever just say 'sorry' but have to explain why they screwed up and why that doesn't make them bad people. "I'm not, you know."_ _

__"Uh-huh," Kris says and tries to edge into the green room._ _

__"I just think you might wanna be careful," Danny says sincerely. "I mean, I've been reading up on it and you know Adam's kind of...well, you know?"_ _

__"No," Kris says. "I don't."_ _

__"Well, squid eat whales, you know?"_ _

__Kris manages, just, not to laugh in his face. He's not entirely sure what the hell Danny's trying to say because it's just too ridiculous._ _

__"I'm not a whale," Kris points out, still struggling to keep from laughing._ _

__"I'm just saying," Danny's eyebrows wriggle like meal worms and Kris has to chew his lip to keep from laughing at him. "I'd keep away from him when he's peckish, you know?"_ _

__"I'll ...think about it," Kris says and manages to make it past him before he starts to laugh._ _

__He's still giggling a little when Adam bounds into the green room, carrying the last vibrations of his song with him._ _

__"What's so funny?" Adam demands as he sprawls out over Kris and the couch, tentacles worming their way under Kris' shirt to limpet on to soft skin underneath._ _

__"Danny thinks you're going to eat me because squid eat whales," Kris says, giggling again at Adam's expression._ _

__"You're a little tiny to be a whale," Adam starts, smirking at Kris' indignant huff, "but I would eat you up with a spoon if we had time."_ _

__Kris can feel where Adam is hot and hard against his upper thigh and his breath catches. Adam catches Kris' lower lip between his teeth and Kris feels the rush of heated blood to his dick. Kris can't get enough air into his lungs and feels his gills pull against the skin holding them closed. Adam kisses him, slow and deep, tongue pressing between his lips and Kris tastes the tacky-powder of his makeup. The tentacles that wind through Adam's bracelets and Kris' hair hold his head in place and let Adam kiss his mouth open._ _

__One tentacle, not even as wide as Kris' little finger, attaches itself one sucker at a time along the line of Kris' pulse, where his blood is close to the surface. Adam moans or maybe Kris does? Kris can't tell, can't think past the thrum of his heart-beat and the taste of Adam's lipstick._ _

__"PLACES IN FIVE!" Someone bawls just outside the door and they pull apart so fast that Kris feels the bruises left where the suckers were. Adam looks...disheveled. Hot. Heavy-eyed. Hungry._ _

__"Fuck," Adam breathes._ _

__"Later," Kris promises and Adam laughs and they're up and running for the make-up chairs. Lydia scowls at them and Kris gets attacked with powders and creams and spiky-hair brushes get jabbed at where his neck is tender. He and Adam get chased back out onto stage just as Ryan welcomes the watching audience back to the show._ _

__Danny eyes Adam like he's done something wrong and pointedly puts himself between Adam and Kris. Adam narrows his eyes at Danny who doesn't seem to notice and Kris tries really hard to focus on the judges. Ryan's listening intently to his earpiece._ _

__It's Danny who goes home and Kris hates that his first feeling is relief because, yeah, Danny can be a dick but it's still the end of his dream._ _

__Danny hugs him tighter than Kris was expecting and says something about thanking Kris for opening his eyes to the wonders of His Creation and the lies about 'Sirens'. Adam gets a handshake and an insincere 'good luck'._ _

__Kris doesn't stay around to listen to Danny's closing act because the driver's already getting him and Adam loaded into the car for the drive back. There are meetings with production teams and talk about the list of publicity events that they'll have to do. Kris gets pulled aside to talk about the West-Pacific pod's spokesfish (the PA actually calls them that and says that West-Pacific asked for that term to be used). Kris thinks his momma must be having a spring tide dealing with these folks._ _

__Basically, Kris will get to preview what they're going to say about him before it gets broadcast. The PA promises that Kris will get some time to rebutt the arguments._ _

__"Don't worry about that," Kris says, "I'm just going to keep doing my best, no matter what they say."_ _

__"That's such a perfect answer!" The PA drags him over and makes him say it into the camera this time._ _

__He gets back to the mansion after Adam and after Danny's packed up and left. There are cameras poking through everywhere and no sign of Adam. Kris looks around for him but Adam isn't in their room or any of the other rooms. He might be in the pool but Kris gets 'reminded' by the PAs that he can't go down there while they have nothing else to film._ _

__Instead, Kris sits on the couch and noodles away on his guitar while the cameras circle him. Adam shows up about fifteen minutes later with wet hair and hugs Kris._ _

__"You should totally get your tail wet," he says and Kris slips downstairs after a half-hearted protest._ _

__Adam's not-so-gentle prodding is explained as soon as Kris gets poolside - there's a note, written in smudged, glittery pencil on the bench where Kris usually leaves his clothes._ _

__"WE NEED TO TALK," it says in Adam's diva-esque swirl. "TONIGHT, LIGHTS OUT."_ _

__Kris is really hoping 'talk' is one of those euphemisms that Adam's friend Brad likes so much._ _

__Kris is bitterly disappointed two hours later._ _

__"It's not that I don't want to fuck you," Adam says in the dark, from his own bed where he is bundled up in his blankets. "It's just that I don't want to fuck this up."_ _

__"Fuck what up?" Kris grouches. He is on his own bed but he hasn't bothered with the covers._ _

__"The show!" Adam says sincerely. "I mean, I really, really want to fuck you. There is like an internet full of things that I want to use on and with you and a whole library of positions I want to try with you. I just want to take my time, do it right, you know?"_ _

__Kris does not know. Kris would like to be trying these 'positions' with Adam right now. Kris grumbles into his pillow._ _

__"And we're so close," Adam says persuasively. "One more week, Kris and the show's gonna be over."_ _

__Kris hadn't thought of it like that._ _

__"I don't want to be distracted by your ass and your pretty dick," Adam says and Kris wonders if he should be taking offense over the 'pretty'. That's supposed to be gendered, isn't it?_ _

__"I want sex to be about us," Adam continues before Kris can decide. "I want us to be having sex in a bed that isn't right next to a camera crew without having to worry about how we're going to sing with morning-after voices."_ _

__"What's a morning-after voice?" Kris asks._ _

__"What you're going to sound like after I've made you scream all night long," Adam says breezily. "Also, what I'm going to sound like when you make me do the same."_ _

__"So," Kris says slowly, "instead of having sex now and risking our voices, you want us to spend the week of the final sexually frustrated and struggling to focus? That doesn't seem like a good plan."_ _

__"Well," Adam huffs, "it's not going to sound like a good plan when you put it like that! I think we should wait, that's all!"_ _

__"I'm not going to make you have sex with me," Kris agrees and roll over to get his phone off the dresser at the side of his bed. The screen lights up, filling the room with weird jagged shadows._ _

__"What are you doing?" Adam's eyes gleam in the dark as he rolls over._ _

__"Looking up how to masturbate," Kris says matter-of-factly. "That's the fastest way to make an erection go away, isn't it?"_ _

__"I always pictured my PE teacher naked," Adam mumbles. "Wait, you're going to jerk off?!"_ _

__"You said we're not having sex," Kris pointed out. "I'm just handling it myself."_ _

__Adam makes a protesting sound but Kris hears the hitch in his breathing when Kris digs out the stay-wet and squeezes a dollop into his hand. The gel feels surprisingly cold against the heated skin on his cock and Kris hisses. Adam's breathing comes louder and as Kris skims the directions on the site he's pulled up, he sees Adam's eyes glinting over the edge of his covers. It makes Kris think of how it had felt to have Adam's tentacles wrapped around his cock and he gets harder._ _

__Kris locks his phone, tossing it onto the dresser and pulling his pajama pants down past his hips. The gel spreads over his dick, slick and not-quite wet. The slight breeze feels cool and Kris shivers. His fingers curl around his dick and he can feel the rush of blood._ _

__It takes some experimentation to get the pressure right. Too tight and discomfort edges out the pleasure. Too loose and he feels the sweat dampening the back of his neck as his hips arch off the bed. Kris learns every millimeter of the calluses on his hand, how the rougher skin feels against his dick and where to press just a little harder. There are jolts of electricity running through him but they're just far enough apart to make him hot and bothered but not enough to push him over._ _

__Adam hadn't taken half this long, Kris thinks and rolls his head so he's looking over at Adam. Right into Adam's dark eyes, the blue glow of his iris almost completely swallowed by the black pupils. Adam's breathing is short, ragged pants. The callus on Kris' thumb catches just under the head of his cock and for a split second, it feels like the tip of one of Adam's tentacles-_ _

__-And Kris comes with a bitten off cry. He falls back onto his bed, sprawled out like a starfish and panting. Adam makes a throaty, desperate sound and Kris' dick twitches as Adam's bundle of covers quivers and he moans his own release._ _

__They lie in the dark, both just breathing and Kris can hear the faint wheeze as Adam mutters a string of curse words._ _

__"That," Kris manages eventually, "didn't feel like the fastest way to get rid of an erection. Is it always this messy?"_ _

__Adam's pillow hits his face two seconds before a packet of wet wipes lands on his bed._ _

__"Clean yourself and go. To. Sleep. Kristopher," Adam says. The commanding tone might work a bit better if he wasn't still breathless. "No more jerking off or I really will come over there and ravish you."_ _

__"You say that like it's a punishment," Kris mumbles but he's sleepy all of a sudden. He cleans himself up and throws the used wipes into the trash can. Adam rolls over in a rustle of covers and Kris pulls up his pants and curls up around his pillow._ _

__They both stumble downstairs the next morning, sandy-eyed and yawning. There is a whole team of PAs waiting to usher them off on a round of publicity events so they get to grab a coffee together at breakfast and get no closer than about ten feet to each other for the rest of the day._ _

__Kris learns how to work the text function just fine. There's a lot of interest in him, apparently. 'The first Siren on _American Siren_ ' seems to be really interesting to walking folk. Everyone wants to talk to him and ask him the same questions._ _

__Walking folk don't seem to have a lot of imagination, Kris thinks and he winds up texting Adam the whole way through the string of interviews. Adam's a lot more fun than the interviewers and his pithy commentary means Kris' smile when he gets asked for the twentieth time if he feels like a 'fish out of water'._ _

__Lunch is something sticky and green eaten in a cafe that's all mirrors and sterile white furniture. Kris eats with two PAs staring intently at their phones and talking back and forth about his schedule._ _

__"Um," Kris says when there's a lull in the back and forth. "I am gonna get time to practice, right?"_ _

__"Practice?" The blonde PA reaches over and pats his hand without looking up from her phone. "Don't worry, sweetie, you're doing just fine. You don't need to practice."_ _

__"I mean practice for the show," Kris says._ _

__"Oh," she looks at the other PA and they blink at each other. "We should totally schedule that, shouldn't we?"_ _

__"Yes, please?" Kris says as politely as he can._ _

__The schedule, once it's finally made and approved, doesn't really take into account any need for food or sleep or showers. He and Adam manage to co-ordinate via text messages long enough to arrange for a schedule that won't actually kill them but it's hard work and it means that they're together only when the interview schedule allows for it._ _

__Two days of this schedule and Kris' patience is shot, his skin feels like it's been salted and Kris is in a foul mood. Sylvie bullies herself into Kris' PR team and becomes an unbreakable bulwark against the bullshit Kris is being asked to do. Anna runs messages back and forth between them and she catches Kris coming out of the studio._ _

__"Hey, fish boy!"_ _

__"Hey, Anna," Kris says distractedly, "what's up?"_ _

__"Sylvie says to tell you that you're nearly done with interviews going into the show," Anna says as she falls into step with him. "Also, I hit up the malls with Adam's little posse over the weekend."_ _

__"Uh-huh," Kris says. Just the mention of Adam makes him miss Adam's laugh, Adam's voice. They've both been too tired even to talk but Kris has spent the last two days tantalizingly close._ _

__"Sound more enthusiastic, why dontcha?" Anna pokes him in the side. "I have it on excellent authority that your boy is going to really like these."_ _

__"These?" Kris blinks at her and then remembers. "Oh, you got the jewelry?!"_ _

__"I did," Anna beams at him and holds out a bag. "I triple-checked with all his friends who think this is just the sweetest thing ever."_ _

__"They haven't told him, have they?" Kris stares at her._ _

__"Pffft, of course not," Anna waves a hand. "I have all of that handled. No-one's going to say a word, but you should totally give him his present before you guys go out on stage on the final."_ _

__"That's a little public," Kris says slowly but the more he thinks about it, the more he likes it. Traditionally, gifts for a courtship aren't displayed publically until the courtship is official but Adam wants to take Kris out on a date. That's practically public declaration, right?_ _

__"Also, Sylvie says that they've got the tape from the spokesfish," Anna rolls her eyes at the name. "So if you want to watch it...?"_ _

__"Sure," Kris says but it isn't until the morning of the last show that Kris actually gets to sit down and watch the interview._ _

__Cale wasn't kidding; the guy sitting uncomfortably in a chair has barnacles studding the line of his jaw, seaweed tangled into his beard. He keeps his third eyelid closed the whole time, which turns his eyes murky green/brown and makes him look like a drowned man. He keeps hissing his words and whistles at the end of sentences. He sounds clumsy and uneducated._ _

__He doesn't even give his name, saying he's here as 'the voice of the folk of West-Pacific' which makes Kris snort. Most of what he's saying is about what Kris expected; Kris is breaking social conduct and making a show of himself in front of 'folks that don't understand'. Kris was ready for that part. What he wasn't ready for was the venom in what the spokesfish says._ _

__The guy's talking about Kris like he's oil-addled and stupid to boot. He talks about Kris singing like it's wrong and Kris hisses to himself. He's never been ashamed of his singing or who he sings to. The spokesfish thinks Kris shouldn't be singing to people he doesn't know personally? Fuck that!_ _

__Kris stops watching just after the spokesfish says that singing like this is a sign that Kris isn't desirable to his age-mates and is subliminating by performing. Kris is so angry that if the guy was in the same building, Kris would hunt him down and bite him until the water is red with his blood and-_ _

__Kris breathes out. This isn't helpful. Attacking another _icythus_ in the middle of his preparations is just going to screw up his performance. He goes looking for Adam instead._ _

__"Hey Kris," Adam is in the middle of choosing his outfit for the night. "What do you think about-?"_ _

__Kris goes right up to him and hugs him. Adam hugs him back, tossing his shirt to the bed so he can wrap both arms around Kris._ _

__"Sorry," Kris says after the familiar (beloved) heart-beat has lulled him back to calmness._ _

__"You don't have to be sorry," Adam says, hugging him tighter. "Did something happen?"_ _

__"I just-" Kris stops and breathes out. "I'm just glad I met you, you know?"_ _

__"I'm glad I met you too," Adam says. Kris doesn't need to look up to know that he's smiling. "What's brought this on?"_ _

__"I just..." Kris steps back and smiles at him. "Does it matter?"_ _

__"Not if you don't wanna talk about it," Adam says immediately but he's frowning a little._ _

__"I have a present for you," Kris says to distract Adam before he can ask any more questions._ _

__"A present?" Adam's eyes light up. "You didn't have to, baby."_ _

__"I wanted to," Kris shrugs it off. "It's traditional."_ _

__"Traditional?"_ _

__"You asked me out," Kris says reasonably. "Traditionally, I'm supposed to give you a present to show that I'm saying yes."_ _

__"Oooh," Adam tears open the silver paper Kris had found in the bag. The jewelry isn't elaborate. Well, Kris mentally amends as Adam's eyes go wide, they're not elaborate by Kris' folks' standards. There's a silver ring with ocean colored opals and two earrings with the same glossy blue-purple as Adam's tattoo. It's all very Adam. "Oh, wow. They're beautiful!"_ _

__Kris gets kissed and Adam smiles at him._ _

__"You are totally telling me what's bugging you after the show," he says, "but right now, you are helping me get all dressed up."_ _

__"I can do that," Kris says._ _

__Adam, unsurprisingly, takes five times as long as Kris does to get ready and he keeps Kris right there with him. Kris doesn't really want to go anywhere else. Everyone is nervous, the PAs are swarming around like a spawning shoal in the shallows. Sylvie comes back to tell Kris that his family have arrived and are taking their seats._ _

__The green room feels like a greenhouse as they wait down for the show to start. Adam is picking at his nails. Kris can feel the swelling tension and the noises of the preparations going on outside seem louder than they ever have before. Kris tries not to think about how many people are going to be watching. Adam's humming and drumming his fingers on his leg. Kris keeps his attention on his breathing as much as he can._ _

__"Kris?" Adam says as the tone of the noise takes on a more purposeful note that means they're nearly ready to start. "Good luck."_ _

__"May the best fish win," Kris says with a smile and Adam cracks up so hard that he almost falls over._ _

__"Oh my god," Adam manages, "Kris! You can't just say that!"_ _

__"I just did," Kris sticks his tongue out and Adam combs his fingers through his hair._ _

__"If it wouldn't mess up my make-up," Adam says, "I would kiss you senseless right here and now."_ _

__"After," Kris promises._ _

__"To the winner goes the spoils," Adam kisses him lightly. "Break a leg, baby."_ _

__"Break an arm?" Kris tries and Adam is still laughing when the call comes through for places._ _

__Kris doesn't actually remember much about the performance. The sound of the crowd is a sea of sound that Kris feels along every inch of his skin._ _

__Adam goes on first, singing in a way that makes Kris forget all about the rest of the world. Adam's voice, Adam's inflection and the sight of Adam in his brilliant white suit, shining like a star against the dark blue stage; Kris can't look away. Kris stays in the wings, where he can close his eyes and listen. He forgets about the judges, forgets about scoring points or winning votes because he can't think about that. He can hear his pod, his parents, his brother and Cale in the audience, cheering but he can't focus on that either._ _

__It's over too fast and Kris is being steered onto his place before he can clear his head. Ryan is talking into his microphone at the top of the stairs while the background chatter trickles through his ear-piece. Kris can hear the music cuing up and he panics, heart jumping against his ribs. He can't do this. He can't get up in front of all these people and sing!_ _

__"Hey," Adam's voice is rough from the singing, "Good luck!"_ _

__Kris has just enough time to smile at him before the opening notes start to play and he has to step out under the burning lights._ _

__He can't see the crowd but he can hear them breathing, hear the whirr of the cameras. Kris closes his eyes and pushes them all out of his mind. He sings to Adam instead, blends the harmony of Adam's voice into his song and threads it with everything that he feels for Adam._ _

__There's a dead silence as the last notes die out and Kris breathes in, heart in his throat._ _

__Then the crowd explodes; cheering, clapping and screaming and Kris' knees buckle with relief. Ryan appears out of nowhere, wrapping an arm around Kris' shoulder as the thunderous applause crashes over them. Kris feels like he's floating as Adam comes out so Ryan can start talking up the votes. Adam's got an arm around Kris' shoulders and Kris can't keep the smile off his face as he wraps his arm around Adam's waist._ _

__The voting starts and they get a few minutes to run backstage and change shirts. Kris is still floating on the high of the performance. Adam comes back out, wearing his own clothes and looking like himself again, and Kris has to stop and look at him. Adam's freckles glitter under the make-up and the glow of performing makes him seem unearthly._ _

__"You did really well," Kris says and hugs him because he can't keep his hands to himself. "You are totally going to win."_ _

__"Uh-uh," Adam laughs and wraps his arm back around Kris' waist, stealing a kiss. "I think you might have beat me."_ _

__"Only if the folks at home are deaf," Kris smiles and wriggles as Adam's tentacles spread out under Kris' shirt. "You were amazing!"_ _

__"Kris Allen, Adam Lambert," a voice comes over the backstage speakers. "Places please. Kris Allen and Adam Lambert to your places, please."_ _

__"Hey, just so you know," Adam says as they jog back up to the studio. "You were awesome too."_ _

__"I'm just glad I didn't have to vote," Kris says and Adam laughs at him._ _

__Ryan is waiting on stage with his white teeth and his hand to his ear as the lights come up. Adam's arm tightens around Kris' waist as Ryan confirms that the votes are in and the lines are closed and announces that over a hundred million votes were cast._ _

__Adam's practically vibrating against him as Ryan draws out the moment._ _

__"And the winner of _American Siren_ 2008 is..." Ryan takes a deep breath. "KRIS ALLEN!" _ _

__Kris doesn't even get a moment to be shocked before Adam hugs him tight enough that Kris squeaks. His eyes are bright but his smile is genuine and he whispers congratulations in Kris' ear._ _

__"It should have been Adam," Kris says before Ryan is asking him to say a few words and Adam's slipped off stage._ _

__"So, Kris Allen," Ryan says. "Congratulations! Anything you want to say to your family and to your fans?"_ _

__"Um, thanks?" Kris says. "I mean, I wouldn't have made it without you guys and it's been an amazing journey and I'm so grateful. I don't think- I don't even know where to start. I wouldn't be here without help so I really wanna say thank you for all the support and thank you to Adam. Seriously, man, it should have been you."_ _

__There's another cheer, this time with whistling that sounds like Cale and Kris rubs at his cheeks. Ryan gives him a trophy which is crystal and very pretty and Kris has no idea where he's expected to keep it._ _

__"All right," Ryan turns to Adam as Kris gets swept off and get changed for his performance._ _

__The last song of the show is cheesy as hell but Kris doesn't care. He's still shaking and he can see Adam in the audience now, surrounded by his family and Kris' pod. Then the lights come and Kris looks at the camera and starts to sing. He tries to put everything that the show has been, the good and the bad and the transcendent. It's one of the most intricate performances he's ever given and Kris feels wrung out and weak afterwards but the crowd is still cheering._ _

__Kris comes back out from scrubbing off the dried gel to find his mom waiting for him. Kris hugs her and nearly gets his ribs crushed in return._ _

__"I'm so proud of you, honey," she is bright-eyed and sniffling a little. "And that was so romantic!"_ _

__"It's not _romantic_ ," Kris lies, trying not to blush. "It's a competition."_ _

__"Leila thinks it's romantic," his mom sniffs. "And you should have seen Adam's face when your father started talking about your harmony."_ _

__"Adam's fa-," Kris' good mood evaporates. "You told him!?"_ _

__"Of course," his mom blinks at him. "You two are perfect together!"_ _

__"Moooooooom!" Kris wails. "Why did you do that!"_ _

__"Well, if you're thinking of pairing with him," his mom starts and Kris groans._ _

__"I hadn't had a chance to tell him anything!"_ _

__"Kristopher Neil Allen," his mom threads his name with all the tonal inflection of a guppy who's pulled an elder's tail, "I know we raised you better than that!_ _

__"I was going to!" Kris protests. "I was! But we didn't have a chance to talk about courting or relationships! We were going to talk about it once the show was done."_ _

__His mom does pause at that and she shakes her head. "Well, you better find him and explain, hadn't you?"_ _

__"I'm trying to!" Kris objects. "I would have if I'd know you were going to do this."_ _

__It's not that easy but Kris' mom does let him go looking for Adam after another few minutes of guilt-tripping. Kris searches the green room and the whole of backstage, getting waylaid by roving interviewers and congratulated on his win. He manages to mostly keep smiling and answer questions._ _

__Sylvie and Anna are in the backstage area with a couple of bottles of champagne and Kris nearly runs right past them._ _

__"Hey, fish boy!" Anna says and he gets hugged tightly. "I knew you had it in you!"_ _

__"Thanks," Kris smiles at her. Sylvie looks a little dazed but she smiles and Kris can see the gleam of Anna's lipstick on her lower lip. She hugs Kris._ _

__"Looking for Adam?"_ _

__"Yes!"_ _

__"He did some press out front," Sylvie tells him. "Then he went backstage, I think he's gone back to the mansion. He was looking for a driver."_ _

__"Did he find one?"_ _

__"I think so," Anna interrupts. "I haven't seen him for a while and Larry's not with the rest of the drivers."_ _

__"Okay," Kris kisses her cheek. "Thanks."_ _

__"Good luck," Sylvie says and they both hug him. "Go get him!"_ _

__"I'm trying," Kris grumbles and leaves them to enjoy their champagne._ _

__There are a whole lot of people who want to congratulate him and it takes Kris fifteen minutes to get out of the studio and another twenty to find a driver. Everyone wants him to do something for them or with and Kris finally finds a older guy wearing a driver's cap._ _

__"I hate to trouble you," Kris says, "but I really need to get to the mansion."_ _

__"We're not supposed to," the guy starts._ _

__" _Please_ ," Kris begs and the guy hesitates. "I just- I have to talk to Adam."_ _

__"Guess even you folks can be dumb kids, huh?" The driver shakes his head and Kris wants to shake him. "All right, come on, kiddo. My car's out the back."_ _

__"Thank you!" Kris smiles at him and they hurry out the backdoor while everyone is still bustling around cleaning up all the loose ends. Kris' folks are talking with Adam's family and Daniel nods to him as he ducks out._ _

__Kris spends the trip fretting at the seams of his dress pants and trying to figure out what he needs to say and texting Daniel. Daniel's idea of relationship advice is unhelpful but he does say that they'll all go for dinner and talk to Kris and Adam later._ _

__Kris lets himself into the mansion, waving away the helpful driver from the top step. The mansion is dark but there's a light coming from the kitchen. Kris closes the doors behind him, delaying the inevitable. There are bottles on the counter, most of them still full._ _

__"Adam?" Kris calls, trying not to count the bottles out._ _

__Adam comes in through the patio door with a bottle of vodka in his hand. He looks at Kris and puts the bottle back on the counter with a sigh. Kris tries not to look too relieved but the wry look that Adam shoots him suggests he failed._ _

__"So," Adam says, sitting with his back against the wall. "How does this work?"_ _

__"This?"_ _

__"Are we married now?" Kris can hear the jump in Adam's heart rate but his tone is all muddled emotions that Kris can't sort out._ _

__"Married?!" Adam tenses up and Kris sits back on his heels. "No, Adam, we're not married."_ _

__"Your folks are talking like we are," Adam says, not relaxing and sounding torn._ _

__"My folks talked like that about Bravo and about Katy," Kris says. "They're romantics and they'd really like to see me married. They know that I like you a lot and they like you so they're getting carried away."_ _

__"So being in harmony doesn't mean you're married?" Adam stares at him with narrowed eyes._ _

__"No," Kris shakes his head and bites back the smile. "Being in harmony is...being compatible. Being in harmony is like...you remember how you told me about how it felt when you met Brad? This person who just clicked and it just worked really well?"_ _

__"Brad dumped me," Adam points out sulkily._ _

__"Because as good as you guys were for each other, you weren't _right_ ," Kris says. "You know I can harmonize with Bravo?"_ _

__"No," Adam stiffens and his tone goes prickly and jealous._ _

__"Not as easily as I do with you," Kris assures him. "But we could have harmonized just fine but I wouldn't have married him."_ _

__"Why not?"_ _

__"Bravo loves a lot of people," Kris says. "He's a plural. I'm a solo. I don't want to marry a whole shoal of people. I want a relationship with just one person. I love him to pieces but I wouldn't be happy with him and we both know that."_ _

__"Poly-gay marriage," Adam mumbles. "Only in the sea."_ _

__"Not if Sasha has her way," Kris says honestly and Adam cracks up._ _

__"So we don't have to get married?" Adam checks._ _

__"Not if we don't want to," Kris shrugs. "We don't...we don't even have to be in a relationship if you don't want to. All being in harmony means is we would be awesome together if we were."_ _

__"Kristopher Allen," Adam says, smiling for real this time. "Are you asking me to go steady?"_ _

__"Um...possibly?" Kris hedges, thumbing at his phone. "Can I check urbdandictionary and get back to you?"_ _

__Adam collapses in a tide of giggles and when Kris tries to catch him, because Adam might choke or something, Adam pulls him down too. Kris winds up half-squished, Adam's tentacles wiggling under Kris' clothes. It's probably the most comprehensive hug Kris has ever gotten. Adam's giggles gradually subside and they lie there for a few minutes._ _

__"I do love you," Adam says suddenly. "I don't know if marriage is my thing and I am so not moving twenty thousand leagues under the sea but I am totally willing to date you and seeing how it's going to turn out."_ _

__"You wouldn't have to live twenty thousand leagues under the sea," Kris says. "Just visit. Mom wants you to come for Thanksgiving."_ _

__"Seriously?"_ _

__"She'd ask anyway," Kris admits. "She thinks you're good for me and she's been talking with your mom about coming to San Diego for your Thanksgiving."_ _

__"This two calendars shit is going to be confusing," Adam complains. "Two of every anniversary. You're totally going to expect me to remember both, aren't you? You are so lucky that I love you."_ _

__"Yup," Kris said happily._ _


End file.
